Walk 4 The Lead Mines
3 miles (4.75km)

As with the previous walk, head over the crossroads but this time bear right across the ‘old bridge’ that dates back to the mid eighteenth century (page 38). Go past the jumble of houses forming the first part of Brook Street. A little further along on the right are Nos 7, 8 and 9, originally a high status dwelling that became part of a terrace for mill workers and lead miners (page 48).

At the end of Brook Street a gate opens onto the High Green, with on the right what was the village pinfold (7) for impounding stray animals. The route runs alongside the beck to reach a stile just past a footbridge. The graded path now climbs to another stile, beyond which keep a wall on the left to reach a further stile close to a ruined barn. The path now closely follows the wall on the right and gradually climbs, with Scale Force usually audible if not readily visible.
Eventually the land levels out and forms Hell Field - nothing to do with Satan but merely a corruption of Ell and indicating that it was originally L-shaped. The path now veers left away from the wall and heads over the brow of the field to a narrow gateway giving access to the Scar Side. High up on the left are vertical crags with a detached section of the cliff forming the Falling Rock-part of it actually fell in 1947.

The route now becomes challenging as what is locally known as the Twiny Path twists and turns steeply up the fellside. It has all the appearance of an embanked packhorse track and tradition maintains that it was a route used by the monks of Fountains Abbey who rested from the climb at Scar Top (8), the ‘long house’ occu-pying a commanding position on the right.
The climb ceases immediately after passing through a gateway. Turn right with a wall on the right to reach a stile and a field rich in heather. Cut across left to a track and turn sharp left back towards a cattle grid. Do not go over the grid but instead keep straight ahead with a wall on the left. Mossy Moor Reservoir, which served both the cotton mill and the lead mines (page 59), comes into view.

Ahead the route is clearly apparent as it passes through a series of gateways. At various times on the left are traces of old coal pits as well as ruined pillars that carried the long power rope from a waterwheel at Hole Bottom to Bolton Gill shaft (page 59). More of these pillars eventually appear on the right close to the track (9), which at this point passes a coal level before dropping into Bolton Gill. Just before the bottom look to the right up the Gill to see the entrance to the 250ft deep shaft, a key feature of the Hebden lead mining enterprise (page 56).
The right-of-way now makes a U-turn to join the main track down Hebden Gill, running alongside a small dam that supplied the dressing floors. Immediately beyond it on the left is the entrance to Bottle Level, the first and most successful of the mining company’s underground ventures.

Much is still to be seen on the dressing floors, directly through the gate ahead (10). First are the remains of ‘bouse-teams", where the material or ‘bouse’ that came out of the level was processed according to quality. Some was moved to crushing rollers or botching tubs, designed to separate good ore from rubbish and powered by a waterwheel. The wheel pit is still clearly visible to the left of the track, with above it the remains of what is thought to be Engine House. Here lived the ‘Attender to wheels and pumps’ (page 60).

Go through a gateway after passing Charger Level on the left. Just before the next gateway, across the beck on the right, is the walled-up entrance to Duke’s Level (11), the staggeringly expensive project that brought a new lease of life to the Grassington mining field (page 51).
The track soon passes a small waterfall tumbling down from Mossy Moor Reservoir and then Longshaw Level. This section of the Gill becomes increasingly dramatic, with the beck rushing past crags that tower to the skyline. It must have looked even better before construction of the cart track to the mines in about 1856.

High up on the left above the next gateway is the Rocking Stone (12), once so evenly balanced on the crag below that it could be moved at the touch of a finger. Stretching down from it is a masterpiece of ‘enclosure award’ walling, built in 1857/8 to follow a line drawn on a map by a surveyor without much thought for natural contour and ground conditions (page 71).
The retaining wall parallel to the road carried the pipeline from Longshaw Level to the waterwheels driving the power rope to Bolton Gill and the smelt mill bellows.

Little trace now remains of either of these enterprises, although the tail-race from the first wheel can still be found on the right of the road a few yards past a modern weir. The smelt mill stood on the flat piece of ground just to the left of the pic-turesque Miners’ Bridge (13).
Cross the bridge to reach the hamlet of Hole Bottom. If returning via Walk 3, turn right just past the cottages on the left. Otherwise continue on the now surfaced road to return to the village.

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