Timeline
2 INGOTS OF LEAD FROM GREENHOW – In February 1734, Mr Henry Smart Stevens sent a drawing of two ingots of lead to the Royal Society. They had been found, buried two feet deep, on the side of a track at Hayshaw Bank near Dacre. Each ingot was 23¼ inches long by 5¾ inches… ANOTHER INGOT OF LEAD, now lost, is said to have been found near Nussey Knott, circa 1860. It weighed about 88 lbs, and was inscribed with Trajan’s name, dating it to between 98 and 117 A.D. Despite these clues that the Romans mined for lead on Greenhow, no evidence of their mining or smelting… Roger de Mowbray granted Fountains Abbey “All copper, iron, lead and every kind of metal and stone in his forest of Niderdala in whatsoever place found, below ground or above… in shafts, mines, and minerals” This grant included the township of Bewerley which includes the area which would become the village of Greenhow Hill…. An agreement was made between Byland & Fountains Abbeys that a groove on Kaldestaines (Coldstones), previously worked in common, should continue to be worked in the same way until exhausted. The inhabitants of Bewerley are described as: “living in a certain Beastlie manner to the peril of there soles … which do till and sowe lands and bread cattell, and by there worke do get manie things and manifold of the ground, that is to saye, of iron digging, lead digging and stones digging…” The King ordered lead for Windsor: “Two wagons, each with 10 oxen, carrying 24 fothers of the said lead from Coldstones in Nidderdale in the county of York, by high and rocky mountains and muddy roads to Boroughbridge.” The York Guild of Merchant Adventurers chastised the then Abbot of Fountains, Marmaduke Huby: “…we understand that you occupy buying and selling lead and other merchandise as a free merchant, contrary to God’s laws and man’s, you being a spiritual man and of religion, and so your occupying is great damage and hurt to… 500 miners are recorded as having assembled near Craven Keld accusing the Bolton Priory men of sinking shafts within the Forest of Knaresborough boundaries. Bolton Priory also claimed rights to work the mines in the western area around Mungo Gill. It is not known how many of these people actually lived on the hill;… Sir Stephen Proctor bought the Manor of Bewerley, including the mineral rights. Stephen Proctor built the first recorded smelt mill at Greenhow, probably on Brandstone Beck. An agreement between Stephen Proctor and John Armitage sought to protect the Greenhow miners’ rights: “…there may be cottages erected for the miners and mineral workmen upon the said waste … and also for the keeping of draught oxen and horses for the maintenance of the mines, always leaving the tenants sufficient common”. When the Clay Cross Co were opencasting Nebcastle Rake vein on Burhill for Fluorspar in the 1960s, a halfpenny was found on the picking belt dated 1675. At some time before 1678, Stephen Proctor sold the lead mines and commons to Richard Taylor, of Walling Wells near Retford. Taylor’s sole heir was his daughter, Bridget, who married Thomas White of Tuxford in 1698. When Taylor died, therefore, the manor of Bewerley passed to the White family. The new burial ground for St Mary’s Church Greenhow was consecrated by the Bishop of Ripon, on Thursday 15th August. The burial ground, situted at Coldstones, a third of a mile east of the church, was the gift of the Hon H.E. Butler of Nidd Hall. Harald Bruff bought Kell House, near Craven Keld, as a gift to his wife in 1914. He had been coming to Greenhow since about 1907. Harald & Charlotte Bruff lived at Kell until Harald’s death in 1946. Harald formed the Greenhaugh Mining Co in 1914 to work Lead and Fluorspar from the mines on… A lot of snow this year, worse winter for 40 years. A shareholders report for the Greenhaugh Mining Co on 30th January 1917 told of deep snow over Greenhow, up to 12 feet deep in places: The position of the Company is at the present moment delicate, apart from the above mentioned difficulties, as… Harald Bruff died on 29th January. His wife Charlotte sold Kell House and moved back to live with her daughter at Körunda Mansion, Ösmo, Stockholm, Sweden.
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