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Significance and Access

Please respect this unique and nationally important hill, which is a Scheduled Monument and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The outbuildings next to the interpretation panel were erected for the nearby dwelling with a copper spire. This dates to the 1920s-30s and was built by Mr Radcliffe a Staffordshire MP over three decades after the mines closed. This is a private dwelling so please respect the owners’ privacy.

Much of this side of Ecton Hill is Open Access land and the large pasture you are about to enter can be explored at will. But be aware that paths are uneven and relatively steep, while parts of the slope are dangerously slippery. Do not enter the fenced mine workings as these are extremely dangerous because they may be prone to sudden collapses.

The ridgetop engine house (E) and the powder house (F) are owned and managed by the National Trust.

Credits

These web pages have been produced by Ecton Mine Educational Trust with cooperation of Ecton Hill Field Studies Association and the National Trust, and with the aid of a grant from FiPL administered by the Peak District National Park Authority. The map and reconstruction drawing are by the Maltings Partnership.

Millions of years ago cracks in the folded rock at Ecton were filled by hot metal-bearing water from great depths (photo shows folded rocks with calcite filling cracks). As this cooled copper, lead, and zinc ores were deposited in a series of near-vertical deposits. Two of these, the ‘Deep Ecton Pipe’ and the ‘Clayton Pipe’ as short distance to the south, were very rich and went vertically in sinuous fashion from the hilltop down to great depths. There were long-standing rumours, perhaps based on only wishful thinking, that there was a third rich ‘pipe’ at Ecton. Despite much money and hard work spent in efforts to locate it, this was never found.

The most common copper ore was chalcopyrite, while those of lead and zinc were galena and blende, but in addition there are many other minerals that existed in smaller quantities.

Copper fetched a much greater price than the other metals found at Ecton and was a vital element for making bronze and brass. In prehistory copper was often combined with tin to make bronze tools and weapons. However, another intriguing possibility is that the copper ores were used as pigments, as when oxidised near surface these ores included bright green malachite and intense blue azurite. In much later times copper was used for such things as lining the bottoms of warships, producing low-value coinage and making sculpture.

Chalcopyrite was the primary copper ore mined from Deep Ecton mine, similar in appearance to pyrite which is sometimes known as “fool’s gold”, though of course neither mineral contains any gold. Pyrite is an iron sulphide, while chalcopyrite is a copper and iron sulphide.

The building on the ridgetop started life as the ‘house’ for a steam engine designed by James Watt and used to bring ores from depth up to river level; it was built in 1788 and is the oldest surviving mine winding house in the world. The engine was used until at least the 1830s and probably to about 1850. The window and door were added after the engine was scrapped; if you look carefully at the four sides of the building, most of the original walled-up openings can still be seen. The photograph was taken before the balance cone was restored in 2023.

The 1788 steam engine had two interconnecting winding drums outside, one with a rope that went down the main shaft to the depths of the mine, the other to a shaft that had counterbalance weights. The latter was a 1789 afterthought added after the original weights in the main shaft plummeted to the bottom of the mine. To ensure no loss of life and interruptions to the mining, they sank a new shaft for these. The only viable place for this shaft was downslope and its top had to be raised by building a huge cone of rubble to support the pulley and its frame.

The steam engine broke down from time to time. Thus, a horse-operated winding drum, here from the 1760s, was retained as a back-up system when the steam winding engine was installed.

This old photograph was taken before the engine house roof  was lowered on one side and it was converted to a field barn. The steam engine was located in the far half of the building, while its boiler was in the near half. A short distance upslope there was a small reservoir pond for the boilers fed by water brought up from the mine.

The dilapidated balance cone has stone facing on its downslope half, placed here as a wrap-around buttress sometime in the first thirty years to prevent the structure collapsing. The shaft was covered by a stone beehive cap to protect livestock after the engine was scrapped in the 1850s.

In the 1760s-80s the internationally important Deep Ecton Copper Mine made a fortune for the Dukes of Devonshire. The first copper was mined here long before, in the Bronze Age over 3,500 years ago. The Dukes, who owned northern and western parts of the hill, had their mines worked in-house for over 50 years from 1760. From the 1820s private mining companies embarked on a fruitless search for further rich ore deposits. The mines were finally abandoned in 1889. While the 19th century ventures lost investors’ money, with them at best only finding other peoples’ leavings, they kept local miners in work for decades.

The Duke’s mine was the deepest in Britain in the 18^th century. It descended to well below sea level, reaching 300m under the River Manifold. The mine was deeper than the Eiffel Tower is high and had workings, in places so large, that miners could not see from one side to the other as they worked by candlelight in an atmosphere thick with dust and smoke from gunpowder.

The Deep Ecton Mine elevation is based on one drawn in 1858 and is the best that survives. As recent dives have confirmed, the drawing is schematic in the sense that features shown are in front of or behind others and these are sometimes not directly linked to each other. For instance, the underground canal went behind the main ore workings rather than passing through them.

The interpretation panel is next to the outdoor classrooms of the Geoff Cox Study Centre that are used by schools from across Britain. In the 1970s Geoff, a mining engineer, founded this to inspire students to take an interest in minerals and modern mining. Teaching at school and university levels has continued to today run by the volunteer teachers of the Ecton Hill Field Studies Association. The Ecton Mine Educational Trust now owns and manages the Deep Ecton Mine, supporting the teachers as well as enabling use of the mine for scientific research. Visit https://ectonhillfsa.org and https://ectonmine.org.uk.

In recent years Deep Ecton Mine has been used for scientific research. This has included exploring the vast workings now flooded below the level of the Manifold River using experimental submersible robots developed by a multi-national team. To date these have reached depths of 127m and 113m in the pumping and winding shafts but they were unfortunately stopped here by blockages. Higher up, a massive flooded chamber created in the 1740s to 1760s was explored, located above the horizon of the underground canal. Open leads exist both here and in side passages that will require robots with more sophisticated exploration capacities. Details discoveries have included wooden platforms, miners’ ladders, a chain handrail for a bridge across a deep void and a set of miners’ initials picked into a passage wall in the 1700s. Visit https://unexmin.eu and https://unexup.eu.

Other scientific research has included the use of ground-penetrating radar to search for lost ancient mine workings on the ridgetop and the testing of laser scanning equipment in the unflooded workings.

The powder house, where dangerous explosives were stored. This small shed was placed well away from other buildings and was erected in 1884. The interior was originally lined with wooden panels as an added precaution against accidentally creating sparks.

This large back wall for a building on top of the massive main waste heap was erected in the 1880s and used to separate the ores from waste rock before smelting. The two hoppers behind were used to store ore ready for processing. They had been processing the ores from the ‘Deep Ecton Mine’ at this spot from the 1750s at latest, brought up shafts to this level. The dumped processing waste extends down to the valley bottom. In the 1760s after the Duke of Devonshire took over the mines on his land, he had copper, lead and slag smelters built by the river that took up much of the ground here. However, in the 1770s the massive quantities of copper ore were taken to a new smelter at Whiston near Cheadle, as there were coal mines there for fuel and the processed copper could be shipped out by the then new Caldon Canal.

The ridgetop, illustrated here by an archaeological plan made in 2008, had shallow copper workings dug over 3,500 years ago and was mined again in the 17^th Century when Ecton was one of the first mines in Britain to use gunpowder to break rock.

The prehistoric mining was done using antler tines as picks, animal bones as scrapers and cobbles from the river as hammers. These ancient workings were reworked by Jacob Mumma in 1665-68, who brought the new extraction technique of using explosives in drilled holes from the continent. From his time onwards this part of the hill became known as Dutchman Mine.

The 1788 steam engine had two interconnecting winding drums outside, one with a rope that went down the main shaft to the depths of the mine, the other to a shaft that had counterbalance weights. The latter was a 1789 afterthought added after the original weights in the main shaft plummeted to the bottom of the mine. To ensure no loss of life and interruptions to the mining, they sank a new shaft for these. The only viable place for this shaft was downslope and its top had to be raised by building a huge cone of rubble to support the pulley and its frame.

The steam engine broke down from time to time. Thus, a horse-operated winding drum, here from the 1760s, was retained as a back-up system when the steam winding engine was installed.

This old photograph was taken before the engine house roof was lowered on one side and it was converted to a field barn. The steam engine was located in the far half of the building, while its boiler was in the near half. A short distance upslope there was a small reservoir pond for the boilers fed by water brought up from the mine.

The dilapidated balance cone has stone facing on its downslope half, placed here as a wrap-around buttress sometime in the first thirty years to prevent the structure collapsing. The shaft was covered by a stone beehive cap to protect livestock after the engine was scrapped in the 1850s.

In their heyday the mines employed hundreds of miners on short-term six to seven week contracts. If the mine manager did not need them they got no work and often if they found no ore they got no pay. Their life was hard, they walked to and from local villages to reach the mine and sometimes climbed down hundreds of metres on ladders to get to where the ore was being worked.

There were seventeen separate mines of various sizes documented as being worked in the 1700s and 1800s at Ecton. There were well over fifty mine entry points in former times but these are now mostly collapsed or filled in; the ones that remain are gated or grilled.

There are still impressive chambers underground, including this one at the adjacent Clayton Mine used for steam engines. Here ores were wound up from depth, while pumps attached to the main engine controlled the water levels deep in the mine.  A second engine next to the chamber was used to compress air for rock drills, while a third produced electricity for lighting.

In Deep Ecton Mine there was a large early-1780s chamber for pumping engines that was placed deep under the hilltop at river horizon. The first one installed had a rocking beam powered by water brought along a horizontal passage driven especially from upriver at Ape Tor. This was replaced in 1823 by a massive waterwheel. Both were classic examples of 18^th and 19^th century green technology.

At the top of the large waste heap surrounded by trees, behind a steel door, there is a flooded passage that originally ran under much of Ecton Hill, which was created in the 1850s to search without success for more rich ore deposits.

The first passage here, started before 1760, was ‘Dutchman Level’ that explored under nearby old ridegetop workings. About a century later this was extended as ‘Goodhope Level’ and despite the name again it failed to live up to expectations. The rock removed as the passages were being driven was tipped down the hillside from the entrance.

In the 1760s-80s the internationally important Deep Ecton Copper Mine made a fortune for the Dukes of Devonshire. The first copper was mined here long before, in the Bronze Age over 3,500 years ago. The Dukes, who owned northern and western parts of the hill, had their mines worked in-house for over 50 years from 1760. From the 1820s private mining companies embarked on a fruitless search for further rich ore deposits. The mines were finally abandoned in 1889. While the 19^th century ventures lost investors’ money, with them at best only finding other peoples’ leavings, they kept local miners in work for decades.

 Millions of years ago cracks in the folded rock at Ecton were filled by hot metal-bearing water from great depths. As this cooled copper, lead, and zinc ores were deposited in a series of near-vertical deposits. Two of these, the ‘Deep Ecton Pipe’ and the ‘Clayton Pipe’ as short distance to the south, were very rich and went vertically in sinuous fashion from the hilltop down to great depths. There were long-standing rumours, perhaps based on only wishful thinking, that there was a third rich ‘pipe’ at Ecton. Despite much money and hard work spent in efforts to locate it, this was never found.

The most common copper ore was chalcopyrite, while those of lead and zinc were galena and blende, but in addition there are many other minerals that existed in smaller quantities.

 Copper fetched a much greater price than the other metals found at Ecton and was a vital element for making bronze and brass. In prehistory copper was often combined with tin to make bronze tools and weapons. However, another intriguing possibility is that the copper ores were used as pigments, for when oxidised near surface these ores included bright green malachite and intense blue azurite. In much later times copper was used for such things as lining the bottoms of warships, producing low-value coinage and making sculpture.

There were seventeen separate mines of various sizes documented as being worked in the 1700s and 1800s at Ecton. There were well over fifty mine entry points in former times but these are now mostly collapsed or filled in; the ones that remain are gated or grilled.

 In their heyday the mines employed hundreds of miners on short-term six to seven week contracts. If the mine manager did not need them they got no work and often if they found no ore they got no pay. Their life was hard, they walked to and from local villages to reach the mine and sometimes climbed down hundreds of metres on ladders to get to where the ore was being worked.

 The west side of Ecton Hill has important species-rich ancient grasslands with rare orchids and other special plants. One of the more spectacular sights is the relatively rare Butterfly Orchids that are found in only one small area of the hillside.

The Geoff Cox Study Centre is used by schools from across Britain. In the 1970s Geoff, a mining engineer, founded this to inspire students to take an interest in minerals and modern mining. Visit https://ectonhillfsa.org and https://ectonmine.org.uk.
In recent years Deep Ecton Mine has been used for scientific research. This has included exploring the vast workings now flooded below the level of the Manifold River using experimental submersible robots developed by a multi-national team. Visit https://unexmin.eu and https://unexup.eu.