MineArchive

Records of historic and abandoned mines across Britain, with sources, photographs and links to further material.

3195 mines · 89 fictional mines · 1582 disasters · updated October 2026

Mines 3195
Every published mine, A–Z, with filters
Regions 101
Grouped by county and district
Commodities 75
What was dug, and where
Terms & Methods 366
Mining vocabulary and methods, explained
Geology 18
Why the minerals were where they were
Disasters 1582
Major incidents, researched like a mine
Operators 3279
The companies and boards behind the mines
Map
Mines and disasters by place and year
Fictional 89
Mines from books, film and games
Culture 205
Songs, clubs, libraries and art the pits produced

Recently added

Mine	Region	Worked	Commodities
Swanpool Mine A Falmouth silver-lead mine that ran beneath a coastal lagoon and was revived by a former New Zealand premier.	Cornwall	Early 1700s–1865	Lead, Silver
Wheal Wrey A Tiddy valley silver-lead mine that yielded over 100,000 ounces of silver in about twenty years.	Cornwall	By 1855–1866	Lead, Silver
Wheal Trelawny A Menheniot lead-boom mine that paid £9,880 in three years, marked today by a listed stack.	Cornwall	1840 or 1845–1902	Lead, Arsenic, Silver
Molland Mine An Exmoor-edge copper mine that turned to iron ore, still raising it into the 1890s.	Devon	1600s–1894	Copper, Iron
West Wheal Seton A copper mine whose 1870s accounts show who owned and supplied a working Cornish mine through the slump.	Cornwall	1844–1891	Copper, Tin
Yeoland Consols A Meavy valley tin mine on ground whose Elizabethan stamping mills Sir Walter Raleigh defended in 1600.	Devon	1852 (as Yeoland Consols)–1857	Tin
Polgooth Mine Once called the greatest tin mine in the world, with Watt, Boulton and the Wedgwoods among its adventurers.	Cornwall	By 1593–1894	Tin
Wheal Margaret A small Lelant tin mine that paid £17 a share in 1855 and went down 200 fathoms through granite.	Cornwall	1790–1877	Tin
Wheal Treasury The mine where Richard Trevithick began work alongside his father, served by a James Watt engine in the 1790s.	Cornwall	By 1793–1870	Copper, Tin
Wheal Henry A poor Gwennap-edge mine whose small killas engine house may be among the oldest still standing in Cornwall.	Cornwall	1734 (first record)–1860s (probably)	Copper, Tin
North Wheal Robert Two small copper setts merged in 1850 that raised 3,674 tons of ore in five years before the lode gave out.	Devon	c.1825 (East Wheal Robert)–1868	Copper, Tin
Westdown Mine A luckless Walkham valley mine whose machinery was carried off by a rival and whose captain was buried alive.	Devon	1847–1858	Tin, Copper

Featured mines

Sark's Hope Silver Mine — Sark, Silver, Copper, Lead
The only metal mine in the Channel Islands to ship ore, and the venture whose debts cost the Le Pelley family the fief of Sark.
Stargate Colliery — Tyne and Wear, Coal
The scene of the 1826 explosion that killed 38 men and boys, eleven of them Robsons; the pit reopened and worked until 1963.
Ramsley Mine — Devon, Copper
Dartmoor's Sticklepath Fault split the same mineral lodes worked here as at neighbouring Belstone, and the derelict brick flues are still crusted white.
Long Meg Mine — Cumbria, Gypsum, Anhydrite
Gypsum, then anhydrite: five million tonnes out of the Eden valley, and its own branch off the Settle–Carlisle.
Prestonhill Quarry — Fife, Whinstone
A century of whinstone shipped from its own pier — and a flooded pit that now trains Navy and fire-service divers while claiming the lives of swimmers.
Ham Hill Quarries — Somerset, Limestone
Quarrying has so reworked the hilltop that the Iron Age hillfort now stands in a warren of stony ridges and hollows — and two quarries are still cutting the stone.