Snailbeach Lead Mine Snailbeach · Shropshire · England

Roman lead extraction at Snailbeach is indicated by the discovery of a Roman pig of lead found nearby, with the Romans known to have been active in the broader Stiperstones upland district around 120 AD. The earliest recorded working on the Snailbeach vein is in 1676 when it was leased to miners from Derbyshire. In 1761 it was leased to Thomas Powys and partners for a five-year trial, extended for a further six years in 1766. In 1782 Thomas Lovett of Chirk leased the mine for 21 years; the mine's wider fame dates from this period. In December 1783 Lovett signed a Deed of Partnership with seven others to form the Snailbeach Company, which worked the mine until 1911.

The mineralised vein runs at a steep angle of between 70 and 80 degrees roughly from the village hall up the valley to the top of the hill. Lead ore (galena) was the principal mineral; at depth zinc ore (sphalerite) was also found, and in the later years of the mine some barytes was extracted. A long drainage level was driven from Wagbeach, and water was pumped up to it by a steam engine. From 1837 to around 1848 a 36-foot diameter waterwheel at the level mouth drove pump rods running along the level and down the shaft. This was replaced by a powerful pumping engine at New Engine Shaft. The mine's eighteenth-century winding engine house at Old Engine Shaft is preserved and represents a particularly early surviving example of its type in the region.

From 1857 the mine was managed by Stephen Eddy, who had previously managed the Duke of Devonshire's lead mines at Grassington and Cononley in Yorkshire. Together with his son, Eddy improved efficiency and introduced eight-hour shifts. During the peak of production in the 1840s and 1850s approximately 500 people were employed at the mine. At this period Snailbeach was reputed to be extracting the largest volume of lead per acre of ground in Europe.

In 1862 a new smelter was opened approximately half a mile north of Snailbeach Mine; prior to this, ore and coal still had to be transported by road. In 1873 an Act of Parliament authorised construction of the Snailbeach District Railway, a narrow gauge line of 2 feet 4 inches gauge from Pontesbury to Snailbeach, a distance of three miles. The railway opened in 1877, operated by the Snailbeach District Railways Company, and greatly eased the transport of coal for the steam engines and the removal of ore for processing. A short branch served the smelter. Passengers were not carried. The railway was initially prosperous, carrying 14,000 tons annually and paying a 3 per cent dividend, though this declined as the mine's output fell.

Unlike many lead mines, Snailbeach continued working during the period of low lead prices after 1870, though output fell sharply in the mid-1880s as the limits of the orebody were reached. The smelt mill closed in 1892. From 1845 to 1913 some 132,000 tons of lead ore were recorded as produced; to that can be added 42,140 tons of barytes between 1860 and 1913, 4,390 tons of zinc from 1858 to 1913, and 904 tons of fluorspar from 1874 to 1879. Pumping at the Lordshill pump ceased in January 1911, causing the workings to flood to the 112-yard adit level. The underground workings had bottomed at around 505 metres below the Day Level.

In 1900 the Halvans Company was formed to work the waste heaps and to extract barytes from the upper levels of the mine, principally via Black Tom Shaft. The Halvans Company's engine house at the south-western edge of White Tip, erected around 1900 to house a steam engine driving the tip-reprocessing plant, survives as a ruin included within the scheduling. Black Tom Shaft had been sunk in the 1820s to a depth of 120 feet and was used for barytes extraction from 1820 to 1930. Some upper levels continued to be worked for barytes until the mid-1950s; the last working area was Perkins/Roberts' level. Underground working finally stopped in 1955. In the 1960s and 1970s waste tips were worked for spar.

The site was left largely derelict from 1955 to the mid-1980s; shafts were open and shallow workings liable to collapse. Shropshire County Council undertook land reclamation and building stabilisation works in 1990 to 1991 and in reclamation phases 1 and 2 between 1993 and 1995. In 1993 the headframe and sheave wheel were re-erected over George's (Old) shaft. The site was declared a Scheduled Monument by English Heritage in 1997, recognising it as the best preserved lead mining complex in the country. English Heritage considered the buildings to be the best of their type in the United Kingdom. The Snailbeach Lead Mine Heritage Project was established following the scheduling. From 1955 the site was acquired in stages by Shropshire County Council; day-to-day management passed to the Shropshire Mines Trust in partnership with the council's outdoor recreation service.

In 2011 Black Tom Shaft was made safe and opened to visitors through the construction of a full-scale replica headgear using original ironwork retrieved from underground. In 2012 a £25,000 project funded by Shropshire Council rebuilt the pithead winding gear over Black Tom using heavy carpentry and traditional techniques. By 2013 mineral-processing machinery including the Hartz jig and spiral classifier, used for barytes separation until the early 1950s, had been reinstalled. The site now presents restored structures including the locomotive shed of the Snailbeach District Railway, the winding engine house, blacksmith's shop, compressor house dating from around 1880, and the Cornish beam engine house. The ore house is a Grade II Listed Building. The site is part of the Stiperstones Site of Special Scientific Interest and is managed as a low-cost visitor attraction by the Shropshire Mines Trust.