Powder House, Belmont Ironstone Mine

The climb up Highcliff Nab from Hunter Hill Farm used to be one of my regular routes, but I rarely get that way much now, so I was surprised to see how much clear felling of Guisborough Wood has been done, with I guess more to follow. I remember this heavily reinforced concrete bunker being hidden by trees and almost buried. It was a powder house where the black powder or explosives for the Belmont Ironstone Mine were stored, well protected and well away from the mine entrance and other buildings to lessen the impact of any explosion. There would have been no windows and no exposed metal fixtures so as to eliminate sparks. The mine itself dates from 1907 although the royalty had been worked for three decades in the 19th-century from a drift to the east of Belmangate. In 1929 the mine was taken over by Dorman Long and Company and soon after was abandoned and dismantled with some of the buildings finding use today as stables.