Smeltmills were water-powered

mills Mills is the plural form of mill, but may also refer to: As a name * Mills (surname), a common family name of English or Gaelic origin * Mills (given name) *Mills, a fictional British secret agent in a trilogy by writer Manning O'Brine Places Un ...

used to

smelt Smelt may refer to: * Smelting, chemical process * The common name of various fish: ** Smelt (fish), a family of small fish, Osmeridae ** Australian smelt in the family Retropinnidae and species ''Retropinna semoni'' ** Big-scale sand smelt ''A ...

lead Lead is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metals, heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale of mineral hardness#Intermediate ...

or other metals. The older method of smelting lead on wind-blown

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 consiste ...

s began to be superseded by artificially-blown smelters. The first such furnace was built by Burchard Kranich at Makeney,

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 no ...

in 1554, but produced less good lead than the older bole hill.

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 recor ...

(the Queen's assay master), and a leading shareholder in the Company of Mineral and Battery Works introduced the ore hearth from the

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 o ...

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 Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

). 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 Slag is a by-product of smelting ( pyrometallurgical) ores and used metals. Broadly, it can be classified as ferrous (by-products of processing iron and steel), ferroalloy (by-product of ferroalloy production) or non-ferrous/ base metals (by ...

External links

North Pennine Smelt Mills
– Interactive mapping and information on North Pennine Smelt Mills ''(Northern Mine Research Society)''

– Interactive mapping and information on Yorkshire Smelt Mills ''(Northern Mine Research Society)'' Metallurgical processes Lead Smelting {{industry-stub

Further reading

External links