Long Meg Mine is a disused

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

mine just north of

Little Salkeld Little Salkeld is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Hunsonby, in the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England, a few miles to the north east of Penrith, Cumbria, Penrith. In 1931 the civil parish had a po ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

in the area known as Cave Wood Valley. It was operated between 1880 and 1976.

History

The Long Meg Plaster Company Ltd. was established in 1880, driving an underground drift upon which operations commenced in 1885. In 1886 a standard gauge extension line was connected to the site from the Settle-Carlisle Railway (a distance of around 0.35 km). The workforce in this year is recorded as being 12 (all Surface), the name of the mine Long Meg Drift and agent A.K.Busby. In 1902 the workforce is recorded as being 26 (12 Underground and 14 Surface). By 1914 however this figure had dropped to 6 (4 Underground and 2 Surface) and the mine was abandoned on an unknown date in 1914/1915. The operator at this time was the Carlisle Plaster and Cement Company Ltd. The mine was re-opened in 1922 for the extraction of

anhydrite Anhydrite, or anhydrous calcium sulfate, is a mineral with the chemical formula CaSO4. It is in the orthorhombic crystal system, with three directions of perfect cleavage parallel to the three planes of symmetry. It is not isomorphous with the ...

by the Long Meg Plaster and Mineral Company Ltd. This was purchased in 1939 by the British Plaster Board Ltd. (now known as

British Gypsum BPB Ltd (formerly BPB plc) (British Plaster Board) was a British building materials business. It once was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 2005, the company was purchased by Saint-Gobain of France. The company's subsidiary British Gypsum ...

). Until its closure in January 1976 its workforce fluctuated between 12 and 29 (4 and 22 Underground; 4 and 18 Surface). The 1 millionth tonne of

was shipped to the plant in

Widnes Widnes ( ) is an Industrial city, industrial town in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England, which at the 2021–2022 United Kingdom censuses, 2021 census had a population of 62,400. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, ...

on 20 May 1959 Bureau of Mines / Minerals yearbook metals and minerals (except fuels) 1959 Year 1959, Volume I (1960) - McDougal, Robert B.; Jensen, Nan C. Gypsum, page 530
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/EcoNatRes/EcoNatRes-idx?type=turn&entity=EcoNatRes005608720538&isize=text
/ref> and before closure over 5 million tonnes were extracted. The mine owned several locomotives used to shunt carts between the mine, the plaster mill and the Settle-Carlisle Railway junction. A 0-4-0 Barclay locomotive named "W.S.T." (after the plaster company's deputy chairman William Steuart Trimble) that was delivered to the site on 10 June 1954 and was transferred in 1969 now resides at the

Bowes Railway The Bowes Railway, built by George Stephenson in 1826, is the world's only operational preserved standard gauge cable railway system. It was built to transport coal from pits in Durham to boats on the River Tyne. The site is a scheduled mon ...

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England. It borders Northumberland to the north and County Durham to the south, and the largest settlement is the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. The county is ...

Present day

Today the mine is in a poor state of repair however much of the site can be viewed from the public footpath that runs along the banks of the River Eden from

to Lacy's Caves. The rail tracks have not been lifted in many places and the public footpath follows its path with metalwork and sleepers exposed. The signal box used for the branch line still exists but like the mine's buildings has been left to decay. Various objects have been left on the site, including train carts. What appears to be an entrance to the drift has been filled in. The newer buildings have "Danger - Keep out" signs, however in the area occupied by the older buildings there appear to be no fences or notices from the main footpath. The site has clearly been used by the public in recent years and various buildings are adorned with graffiti.

References

General
Long Meg Article on Durham Mining Museum

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20061230151023/http://www.visitcumbria.com/carlset/longmeg-box.htm Visit Cumbria Article
Bowes Railway Article about W.S.T.

History

Present day

References

See also