Before the wheel was installed, separating the galena from the other material was a manual process conducted on the Washing Floor. All school groups are shown, under expert supervision, how to process the ore and have direct hands-on experience of what it was like to work as a ‘washerboy’.
Killhope Wheel is an ideal spot for discussing how water power was used to drive machinery to do essentially the same work that they have been doing by hand. They can see some of this machinery working in the Jigger House, and at the Brunton Buddles.
To understand what was mined at Killhope and to see what sort of products were made from lead, schools are taken into the mineral room. Here they can see the different rocks and minerals mined at Killhope, and see various lead products. Next door is the mine office, where the mine agent would work.
The mine shop provided very basic lodgings for those miners who couldn’t always return home at the end of a shift. They brought their own provisions from home and cooked on an open peat fire. When the mine was busy the room would get rather crowded!
Did you know that Killhope is home to Britain’s National Spar Box Collection? Spar Box building has a long tradition amongst the Pennine miners. The bonniest crystals were incorporated into beautiful underground scenes and housed in ornamental cabinets.
Sometimes schools are able to spend longer than three hours here and like to explore the woodland trails here at Killhope. One route takes the visitor around the reservoirs that feed the water wheel and then along to a series of shallow shafts.
We also have squirrel hides where small groups can sit and watch the red squirrels that we have actively been encouraging to feed in the area.
See some photographs sent to us by Wensleydale Middle School, which show their visit to Killhope!
See some atmospheric writing from local students after A Sense of Killhope creative writing workshop with local writer Pru Kitching.