Wanlockhead Lead Mining Museum

 

Equipped to go in to the mine. The tour guide gave me her sweatshirt to cover my white coat. What a sweetie she was.

Plants only grow where there is light. They do have lights on the walls that are turned on when a tour group is there.

More wee plants. One month ago a person was panning for gold and actually found a nugget that was valued at 10,000 pounds.

The miners would carry candles to see what the oxygen content was in the cave. When the candles went out or flickered the miner would retreat. The young men were paid one penny a day during the winter and two pennies a day during the summer because of  more daylight hours. The young men ages 7-16 went to school 1/2 day and then worked in the mines the other 1/2. When they turned 16 if they could not read and write they were not allowed to work in the mines. The young men would teach their fathers to read and then the dads would teach their wives and the wives their daughters. The miners established a library and were great readers.

In the back of the picture is a triangle hill of residual left after mining that the Earl sells of periodically to maintain the roads.

This depicts three different time periods. The Earl allowed the workers to build their own houses and then when they were completed the Earl charged them rent. Previous to this time they lived in tents in the summer and then because of the harsh winters they went home and no work was done in the mines.

In the 1700s this half of the room was for the humans and at night the other half of the room was for their animals so keep them from being taken.

                                                                The roof was made of thatch on the top but underneath were twigs and branches that were open to the outside. Many times seeking warmth, dogs and cats would crawl in. Thus the term, Raining Cats and Dogs. The mattresses were filled with heather stems which are not very soft.



                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                       The 1800s brought nicer walls and housing accessories. The animals were moved out now.

                                                              




                                                                                

1900's brought many more of the niceties that we expect now. Women were typically 5 feet tall and men 5 feet 5-6 inches. So in the mines, they didn't always have to bend over.




They were concerned about witches flying by and coming in. So they hung in the windows a witches globe which would reflect their appearance as they flew by looking for some house to inhabit. They would fly by and see their reflection and think another witch was already in this house.
The furnishings were ordered in and the boxes that they were shipped in were fashioned into other necessities of life.

These were curling stones.

                         Examples of days gone by. Shetland ponies worked in mines pulling the carts.

Purpose of the sheep is to catch ticks.