Langley
Langley Smelt Mill Chimney
Last Updated:
17 Dec 2024
Langley
This is a
Chimney
54.944265, -2.250699
Founded in
Current status is
Extant
Designer (if known):
Listed Grade II
I have to admit, my walk through Allendale to Haydon Bridge was one of my favourite ever walks for this project. I felt like a nomad a couple of centuries after Roman occupation, spotting remnants of a totally bygone age every stone I turned. The chimney sitting on top of the fells was a real highlight.
This was the final outlet for the Langley Smelting Mill that sat at the bottom of the hill. Similar to the Allendale Mill we discussed last week, they utilised a flue system from the bottom of the hill to the top - covering the poisonous fumes to be safely released above ground.
On land originally owned by the Earl of Derwentwater but forfeited to the crown after the Jacobite Rebellion, the area was given to the Greenwich Hospital to finance the maintenance of the estate. Originally garnering rent on similar lead mills nearby, they decided to open their own at Langley in 1768 and were making a net profit of around £700 per year through just the mill. They owned this alongside the Stublick coalfield and yielded the coal for smelting. The Stublick Colliery nearby was directly operated by the hospital after some years leasing for lead production and landsale. The smelting mill was linked directly to the Hexham & Allendale Railway.
A chimney nearby dated from 1803 after taking two years to construct. They cost £871 but "the profit on recovered lead and silver from the ore hearths and refining furnaces were £227 in the first year of use". Silver, and for a short time zinc, was extracted from these lands. The flue system was expanded between the 1860s and 1880s, which is when our chimney was founded as it cannot be seen on the first edition Ordnance Survey. The chimney was required to disperse the toxic fumes from the bottom of the fells, but also to prevent the spoiling of the land. When it first opened, nearby farm tenants complained of the damage to land and cattle so the hospital prohibited farming 13 acres around the mill and constructed to high wall, though this was not ideal.
The works closed in 1887, a decade before Allendale’s, leaving all these structures in slumber. Thankfully, these monuments help us remember the industry which dominated this little region 2 centuries ago.
It's very much worth a read of "Langley Lead Smelting Mills and James Mulcaster's description of 1806" as seen here: https://hmsjournal.org/index.php/home/article/view/500/481
Listing Description (if available)
This is one of the rare occasions we don't have an Ordnance Survey map illustrated during operations. WIth its closure in the 1880s, the chimney was already dormant by the first map shown here in the 1890s (though the works itself predates the Ordnance Survey). You'll spot the chimney at the terminus of the flue system leading south east. The dashed tube illustrations mark the cut and cover flue under ground which led all the way up the hill.
On these maps too, we also see the former mill site as well as the waggonway which linked the Hexham & Allendale Railway and the complex, but was lifted by the 1890s.
So here we do see the mill in operation, but without our chimney. Contrary to the listing, the flue wasn't expanded this far east until between the 1860s or 80s. It led about 60% of its course to a condenser, which will have turned the noxious fumes into a liquid and stored in the little ponds directly north of it. I can't imagine this was entirely productive given its size, but there was also a chimney half way up the flue which will have been the 1803 construction noted above. Nearly the entirety of this flue system is extant, and some parts are exposed also.
The chimney at the top of the fell in November 2024
The stone and brick extension seen here in November 2024.
