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Smeltmill
Smeltmills were water-powered mills used to smelt lead or other metals. The older method of smelting lead on wind-blown bole hills began to be superseded by artificially-blown smelters. The first such furnace was built by Burchard Kranich at Makeney, Derbyshire in 1554, but produced less good lead than the older bole hill. William Humfrey (the Queen's assay master), and a leading shareholder in the Company of Mineral and Battery Works introduced the ore hearth from the Mendips about 1577. This was initially blown by a foot-blast, but was soon developed into a water-powered smelt mill at Beauchief (now a suburb of Sheffield). A typical smelt mill had an orehearth and a slaghearth, the latter being used to reprocess slags from the orehearth in order to recover further lead from the slag Further reading *L. Willies, 'Lead: ore preparation and smelting' in J. Day and R. F. Tylecote, ''The Industrial Revolution in Metals'' (Institute of Metals, London 1991), 93-102. *Various ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bole Hill
A Bole hill (also spelt Bail hill) was a place where lead was formerly smelted in the open air. The bole was usually situated at or near the top of a hill where the wind was strong. Totley Bole Hill on the western fringes of Sheffield consisted of a long low wall with two shorter walls at right angles to it at each end. At the base of a bole {{convert, 20, ft, m, sing=on long were laid great trees called blocks. On these were laid ''blackwork'', partly smelted ore about half a yard thick. Then came ten or twelve trees called ''shankards''. On top of these three or four courses of ''fire trees'' were laid with fresh ore. This was ignited and burnt for about 48 hours. This smelted lead, which ran down channels provided for the purpose and was cast into sows of about 11 hundredweight. A single firing produced 16 fothers of lead (about 18 tons) from 160 loads of ore (about 40 tons) and 30 tons of wood. Much of the ore was left incompletely smelted having become ''blackwork''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derbyshire Lead Mining History
This article details some of the history of lead mining in Derbyshire, England. Background It has been claimed that Odin Mine, near Castleton, one of the oldest lead mines in England, may have been worked in the tenth century or even as early as Roman Britain, but it was certainly productive in the 1200s. Derbyshire lead mines are mentioned in the Pipe Rolls. Recent analysis of a Swiss ice-core extracted in 2013 indicates that levels of lead in atmospheric pollution between 1170 and 1216 were as high as those during the Industrial Revolution and correlate accurately with lead production from Peak District mines, the main European source at the time. On one of the walls in Wirksworth Church is a crude stone carving, found nearby at Bonsall and placed in the church in the 1870s. Probably executed in Anglo-Saxon times, it shows a man carrying a kibble or basket in one hand and a pick in the other. He is a lead miner. The north choir aisle of Wirksworth church is dominated by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water Mill
A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of many material goods, including flour, lumber, paper, textiles, and many metal products. These watermills may comprise gristmills, sawmills, paper mills, textile mills, hammermills, trip hammering mills, rolling mills, wire drawing mills. One major way to classify watermills is by wheel orientation (vertical or horizontal), one powered by a vertical waterwheel through a gear mechanism, and the other equipped with a horizontal waterwheel without such a mechanism. The former type can be further divided, depending on where the water hits the wheel paddles, into undershot, overshot, breastshot and pitchback (backshot or reverse shot) waterwheel mills. Another way to classify water mills is by an essential trait about their location: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smelting
Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a chemical reducing agent to decompose the ore, driving off other elements as gases or slag and leaving the metal base behind. The reducing agent is commonly a fossil fuel source of carbon, such as coke—or, in earlier times, charcoal. The oxygen in the ore binds to carbon at high temperatures due to the lower potential energy of the bonds in carbon dioxide (). Smelting most prominently takes place in a blast furnace to produce pig iron, which is converted into steel. The carbon source acts as a chemical reactant to remove oxygen from the ore, yielding the purified metal element as a product. The carbon source is oxidized in two stages. First, the carbon (C) combusts with oxygen (O2) in the air to produce carbon monoxide (CO). Sec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, lead is a shiny gray with a hint of blue. It tarnishes to a dull gray color when exposed to air. Lead has the highest atomic number of any stable element and three of its isotopes are endpoints of major nuclear decay chains of heavier elements. Lead is toxic, even in small amounts, especially to children. Lead is a relatively unreactive post-transition metal. Its weak metallic character is illustrated by its amphoteric nature; lead and lead oxides react with acids and bases, and it tends to form covalent bonds. Compounds of lead are usually found in the +2 oxidation state rather than the +4 state common with lighter members of the carbon group. Exceptions are mostly limited to organolead compounds. Like the lighter members of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burchard Kranich
Burchard Kranich (c. 1515–1578) (also known as Doctor Burcot) was a mining engineer and physician who came to England from Germany. He was involved in mining ventures in Derbyshire and Cornwall, and in assaying the black ore, thought to be gold-bearing, brought back to England from Baffin Island by Martin Frobisher. He later practised as a physician in London, where he enjoyed a mixed reputation, and is said to have attended Elizabeth I when she contracted smallpox. He is alluded to in several literary works published during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. Early career Kranich's surname is spelled variously in extant documents; contemporary spellings include Cranye, Cranach, Cranicke, Cranegh, Craneigh, Craneighe, Craunighe and Kranyke. He is also referred to in some documents as 'Burchard', as though it were his surname, and later as 'Doctor Burcot'. He is said to have been born in southern Germany, and according to Bennell his surname suggests that he came from Krona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the north-west, West Yorkshire to the north, South Yorkshire to the north-east, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the west and south-west and Cheshire to the west. Kinder Scout, at , is the highest point and Trent Meadows, where the River Trent leaves Derbyshire, the lowest at . The north–south River Derwent is the longest river at . In 2003, the Ordnance Survey named Church Flatts Farm at Coton in the Elms, near Swadlincote, as Britain's furthest point from the sea. Derby is a unitary authority area, but remains part of the ceremonial county. The county was a lot larger than its present coverage, it once extended to the boundaries of the City of Sheffield district in South Yorkshire where it cov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Humfrey
William Humfrey (also Humphrey or Humphreys) (c.1515–1579) was an English goldsmith, mining promoter, and Assay Master at the Royal Mint during the reign of Elizabeth I. Life Little is known of Humfrey's life before 1560, when he is recorded as a member of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London, and as a resident of the parish of St Vedast. He obtained the patronage of Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, who 'considered him an expert on metallurgical matters', and provided him with both financial and political backing. Humfrey was appointed Assay Master at the Royal Mint in 1561. German technologists had recently been brought to England to assist with the recoinage of the debased English currency, and through these contacts both Humfrey and Cecil became convinced that German metallurgical techniques could be used in the development of the English mining industry. In particular, Humfrey needed someone knowledgeable about calamine ore, essential to the producti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Company Of Mineral And Battery Works
The Company of Mineral and Battery Works was, (with the Society of the Mines Royal), one of two mining monopolies created by Elizabeth I. The Company's rights were based on a patent granted to William Humfrey on 17 September 1565. This was replaced on 28 May 1568 by a patent of incorporation, making it an early joint stock company. The Society of the Mines Royal was incorporated on the same day. Shareholders The original shareholders were: *William Humfrey * Christopher Schutz * Sir Nicholas Bacon *Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk * William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke *Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester *William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham *Sir William Cecil *Sir Walter Mildmay *Sir Henry Sidney *Sir Francis Jobson *Sir William Garrard, alderman * Sir Rowland Hayward *John Tamworth * Peter Osborne *Thomas Cecil *Francis Agarde * Thomas Fleetwood *William Roberts *Henry Coddenham *Robert Christmas *Roger Wetherall * William Patten *Christopher Chewte *Thomas Smythe *William Do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mendips
The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills overlook the Somerset Levels to the south and the Chew Valley and other tributaries of the Avon to the north. The hills give their name to the local government district of Mendip, which administers most of the area. The higher, western part of the hills, covering has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), which gives it a level of protection comparable to a national park. The hills are largely formed from Carboniferous Limestone, which is quarried at several sites. Ash–maple woodland, calcareous grassland and mesotrophic grassland which can be found across the Mendip Hills provide nationally important semi-natural habitats. With their temperate climate these support a range of flora and fauna including birds, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
