NAMHO 2022 Booking Open

NAMHO 2022 will be hosted by the Cleveland Mining Heritage Society and take place in Grosmont, North Yorkshire from Friday 17th to Monday 20th June 2022. 

Rosedale East Ironstone Mine (Patrick Chambers)
© Photo by Tom Mutton, copyright Land of Iron

A two-day lecture programme with the theme “Industrial Minerals” will take place at St Matthew’s Church, Grosmont on Saturday and Sunday.

Full details can be found on the NAMHO Website

NAMHO Conference 2022 Accommodation update

NAMHO 2022 will be hosted by the Cleveland Mining Heritage Society and take place in Grosmont, North Yorkshire from Friday 17th to Monday 20th June 2022.
Organised accommodation will be exclusive use of the Holme House Residential Centre and Campsite (normally a Girl Guide facility) at the nearby hamlet of Esk Valley, 1km walk from Grosmont along a footpath at the side of the heritage railway.


We intend to provide camping for £15 per night and bunks for £20 per night INCLUDING breakfast. The downstairs bunkhouse toilets, showers, kitchen and lounge will be available to the campers. Further details and photos are included below.
We hope most people will be able to stay here and make the short commute to the lecture venue on foot, rather than attempting to drive/park in Grosmont itself which can be extremely busy on weekends due to steam buffs and costs £5 per day.
Unfortunately, we are NOT able to allow camper vans / caravans at the Holme House site, currently we are planning for them to stay in a Car Park in Grosmont, which is likely to incur the £5 per day fee.

If these arrangements suit you, then you need take NO ACTION at this time, these facilities will be booked via the NAMHO website when full details are launched (hopefully at the end of January)

However, for those who don’t enjoy the camping experience, are unable to make the 1km walk, or would simply prefer to go elsewhere, we recommend you start to make your own arrangement very soon. Staycations look set to be popular again in 2022 and the Grosmont area is a tourist hotspot.

The surrounding villages offer some B&B / AirBNB / Holiday rentals, however Whitby is the only sizeable town nearby, with numerous B&B’s, hotels and caravan parks, this is approximately 20 minutes drive or train ride away.

Facilities at Holme House include:
Large dormitory sleeping 24 in bunk beds
Two bedrooms, each with twin beds and wash hand basins
Fully equipped stainless steel kitchen with 6 burner large cooker, microwave, boiler.
Separate area for food storage. Fridge and freezer. Pot and pans, cutlery, and crockery
Dining room with benches and tables, Activity room with chairs and foldaway tables
Lounge area with low seating and tables
Two toilets with wash hand basins downstairs, plus four shower cubicles
Not provided – sleeping bags, pillows, towels, toilet rolls and cleaning materials

Camping facilities include:
Enclosed campsite adjacent to house.
Use of downstairs Bunk House facilities such as kitchen, dining room, lounge.
Barn available with fridge-freezer, tables and chairs.
Single outside toilet with wash hand basin
Open fires allowed but no turfing
No trailer tents, campers, caravans or dogs allowed

NAMHO 2022 – Watch this space !!

NAMHO Conference 2022
“Industrial Minerals”
Friday 17th – Monday 20th June 2022
Cleveland Mining Heritage Society invite you to spend the weekend at Grosmont, in the North York Moors National Park.

Two-day lecture programme in a venue adjacent to the North York Moors Railway, a short walk from bunkhouse and campsite with their own mineshaft !

Surface and underground visits planned to local Ironstone, Jet, Alum and Whinstone workings.

Watch the NAMHO website in early 2022 for further details and booking information.

Lumley Castle, Tuesday 11th August 2020.


It came about because Neil had been for a walk in the vicinity of Lumley Castle and noticed the end of an egg-ended boiler in use in a field for watering horses. Sending the picture to me, because of our work on the site of a boiler plant at Skelton Shaft, he suggested a limited CMHS visit to look for any further mining remains.

These horses are a bit big for the local collieries but would fit into the Cleveland Mines.

Four of us met yesterday in the car park beside the River Wear and the county cricket ground and a lengthy discussion ensued as to how long we would be there and therefore how much to feed into the parking machine, as you would expect from Yorkshire people.

Lumley Castle. An ancient pile modernised in the 1700s.

Neil joined us with his friend John and off we went through the golf course and into the wooded valley behind Lumley Castle. Thanks to the Coal Authority website Neil had identified a number of staples, or shallow shafts, in the bottom of the valley surprisingly close to the river. Nearby, above the valley, is the site of Lumley Second Pit sunk in 1776 which intersected the Top Main Seam at a depth of 116 feet so if these staples were working the same seam they were probably less than 50 feet deep to reach it. And it suggests they were worked before that pit was sunk; it eventually reached a depth of 320 feet.

Wandering through the undergrowth filled valley looking for filled in pits was a struggle at times but Steve W. in his shorts waded manfully through the nettles. Eventually John spotted a fenced enclosure which turned out to be guarding a shaft of small diameter, unlined, and a few feet deep to a blockage; confirming that such shallow shafts did in fact exist.

Having discovered a hole in the ground we thought Neil should look into it.

After lunch beside the path in a pleasant spot we found our way to the northern edge of the wood to look for the track of a waggonway to the 9th Pit which was sunk in 1841 and reached a depth of 450 feet, although the waggonway was described as ‘Old’ by 1850. Its track across an open field to the north was just discernible. We followed its route to the south across the valley where it runs down a gradient past old stone quarries to a bridge over the river where a tunnel beneath it is also indicated. Although we noticed an old iron pipe running along the track it was the discovery of a stone sleeper in situ which was more interesting. Old waggonways had wooden rails but this relic suggested iron rails and a date in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Stone sleeper found in situ with two holes for fixing the chair to it.


After looking at the river bridge we looked for the second tunnel but nothing could be seen on the western side. However, Steve W. looked to the east and finding its portal ventured inside, possibly the first CMHS member to go underground since the start of lockdown! Lined with rough stonework and about 6 feet high the tunnel has been blocked at the west end. It seems to have been built for a path along the valley which has now disappeared.

Steve exploring the interior of the tunnel (Simon).
Steve crawling out of said tunnel.

From this point it is a steep climb up to the south out of the valley to the sites of Lumley Nos. 1 and 2 Pits. No.1 was sunk in 1776 and No.2 soon after, but both closed by 1811. No.3 was to the south and reopened in 1811 and eventually closed in 1924. The waggonway must have had a stationary engine to haul wagons up the rise and the OS 25 inch map shows an Old Engine alongside the route which probably did the job although the map also shows Black Row Engine to the east working the branches to these pits via Nicky Nack Bank. The sites of the 1 and 2 pits has subsequently been landscaped and we could find no traces of them at all.

In the vicinity of Lumley Nos. 1 & 2 Pits was this rather nice building probably not mining related.

We followed the road back down into the valley heading for the Lumley Forge Mill, but first had a look into a nearby field to see the end of an egg-ended boiler which is upturned and in use for watering horses. It was revealed to be 6 feet diameter and presumably came from a local pit. The four inquisitive heavy horses were a delight to see as well.

Simon making friends with a local (Simon is the one on the right).
End of egg-ended boiler. Some people don’t take industrial archaeology as seriously as others.
Interior of boiler end.

Near here above the valley was the settlement of Breckon Hill with a pub, a chapel and several cottages no doubt related to the Lumley Forge Mill in the valley below. Now the pub still remains and a cottage but through the middle of the place runs the A1 motorway on a viaduct over the valley. No remains are obvious of the mill which, according to the map, crushed charcoal and barley.

Pterodactyl hanging from tree as they do in Co. Durham.

To reach the site of the mill in the bottom of the valley was problematic as we were above it so eventually we descended down the slope, some of us more quickly than intended while John and Steve managed to find the steps. We returned through the golf course along the river bank past masses of Himalayan Balsom (and Giant Hogweed suitably poisoned) to reach the start point on what had been a hot, humid, itchy, scratchy but very interesting day. Recorded score was Steve 4 wasp stings, and Simon 2 insect bites.

GRID REFERENCES.

Lumley 1st Pit at NZ 2954 5058

Lumley 2nd Pit at NZ 2950 5053

Lumley 9th Pit at NZ 2915 5171

Black Row Engine at NZ 3034 5049

Lumley Forge Mill at NZ 2998 5088

Information from the Durham Mining Museum website, National Library of Scotland website (maps), and “The Private Railways of County Durham” by Colin Mountford, pub. Industrial Railway Society 2004.

Lumley Castle again.

Esk mine powder magazine

Pictures by Eric Duston

Work progressing on the left hand side of the doorway .

Bricks being set into the centre of the wall,on this magazine the wall is three courses of bricks thick .

Colin checking the bricks are level

Work progressing on the right hand side of the door,note the slots for the original wooden floor joists.

Another brick goes into place

Iron Ore in Britain – North Skelton 1956

The complete “Iron Ore in Britain” can be viewed on the BFI website via the link below

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-iron-ore-in-britain-1956-online

The film was produced in 1956 by Stewart & Lloyd’s Iron & Steel Company, based in Corby. However the section between 4:50 and 7:35 was filmed at North Skelton mine in Cleveland.

The main headgear over the downcast shaft on the right, with the smaller headgear over the upcast on the left.
Old hand-drilling methods in cloth caps being demonstrated
Old horse-haulage methods being demonstrated
Modern compressed air drills and hard-hats
Modern Eimco rocker shovel (known as a Cranner locally)
Modern diesel locomotive haulage.