Robson's Mine (Level), Spoilheap and Mineshop/Guardhouse, Borrowdale

Summary

Robson's Level, situated on the southwestern side of the enclosure wall.

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Description

The lowest, and latest, level driven in the mine was Robson's Level, situated on the southwestern side of the enclosure wall. It was started in 1845 as a drainage adit to allow further exploitation of deposits below the grand pipe but had not joined up with any other levels before the mines were finally abandoned (Tyler 1995, 166). Today both adit and spoil heap are hidden by a conifer plantation although trees on top of the platform have recently been removed. The spoil heap has spread down the slope and is about 10 meters high. At its summit is a finger shaped platform with an even surface measuring 16.6 m by 6.8m. The Ordnance Survey 1st Edition 25 inch map of 1868 shows that the material from the mine was brought out on a railway across the spoilheap. At the northwest end of the spoilheap are the remains of a mineshop built into the hillside and now largely cleared of spoil, which is the latest of several guardhouses at the mine that were designed to prevent thieves gaining access to the mine and to allow miners to be searched for stolen graphite on leaving the mine. A photograph of Robson's Level taken c.1888 (reproduced Tyler 1995, 173) shows a two storey gaurdhouse with a slate covered, gabled roof. The physical remains remains correspond well with this photograph and also with Ordnance Survey 1st Edition 25-inch, this shows a rectangular roofed building covering the mine entrance and a three sided, probably unroofed structure abutting its southern corner. The three-sided structure, open at the front, measures 6.1 m by 2.8m internally, within walls 0.8m wide and 0.85m high. The part of the building consists of a rectangular structure 3.8m wide, now earth filled, revetted internally by a series of parallel walls; this may have been the foundation for the upper part of the guardhouse. The adit entrance has been cleared and the portal partly shored up recently; despite this it is still collapsing inwards. The adit is 1.5m wide, its sides displaying remains of stone walling up to 0.9m high. Above the adit entrance is a shallow ditch, up to 2m wide, where the adit has collapsed inwards slightly (Lax, A. 1995).

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