Category: Skelton
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Guibal fan-house, Skelton Shaft ironstone mine
A great visit around the surface remains of the Skelton Park and Skelton Shaft Ironstone Mines, guided by the knowledgeable Simon and Steve from the Cleveland Mining History Society (CMHS). Along with the powder magazine, the fan-house at Skelton Shaft are the only buildings remaining. The rest of the site was demolished as a condition of…
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Joseph Toyn 1838-1924, president of the Cleveland Miners’ Association
Out on my bike today, so I thought I would pop in to Skelton Park Pit to see how the Cleveland Mining Heritage Society are getting on with preserving the surface remains of the old ironstone mine. I thought Tuesdays were their days. But alas, no one around, and as it’s all on private land,…
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Spawood and Spa Ironstone Mines
At Slapewath near Guisborough, there were two ironstone mines operating in the late 19th-century within one hundred metres of each other. To the south of Alumwork Beck (the Guisborough side) was Spawood, and to north (the Skelton side) the Spa mine. They were operated by different companies and worked different royalties, but apart from their…
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South Skelton Ironstone Mine
Most buildings associated with the ironstone mines of East Cleveland have either long since been demolished or converted for industrial use. South Skelton Mine is the one exception because I suppose it went into agricultural use. The farm has now been abandoned and I understand the site is now earmarked for residential development. Operations began…
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Skelton Pond
Not such an ugly duckling. A brood of eight cygnets with a pair of adults. And very tame, no doubt expecting stale bread. Could Skelton Pond be the fish pond mentioned in a 13th-century document? Or where a witch drowned herself after being chased following a murder? I have my doubts. Witches are so 17th…
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Skelton Park Pit
Very little remains of Cleveland ironstone mines. It was second only to coal as the UK’s biggest extractive industry. Ironstone had been mined in the Cleveland Hills since the 12th Century when primitive furnaces called bloomeries were used to melt the iron out of stone gained from rock outcrops along the dale sides. But it…
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Skelton Beck
Skelton Beck flows down a gorge through Crow Wood and Valley Gardens before joining Saltburn Gill Beck and entering the North Sea. Below the Riftswood viaduct carrying the mineral railway to the potash mine at Boulby the beck flow over the remains of a weir used to provide a head of water to drive the Marske corn mill. Marske Mill…