Descending from Highcliff Nab to Guisborough, I felt a sudden urge to revisit a landmark I often passed on my runs around these woods many years ago. This viewpoint, on top of a spoil heap from the Belmont Ironstone Mine, was mercifully spared the blight of commercial conifers—perhaps because even saplings had standards and found the soil too barren. It once offered a panoramic view of the Hunter’s Hill housing estate, and today a conveniently placed mountain bike track led straight to it, for those who prefer their nostalgia with a touch of convenience.
Arriving, I found the conifers had grown tall enough to block the view entirely. The once-sterile ground had apparently been welcoming enough for pioneering birch trees, whose white bark now provided a cheerful contrast to the rusty remains of the return wheel of an aerial ropeway—used to haul gangue, or waste, inexplicably up the hill. Nature, it seems, has little regard for human intent or aesthetic priorities.
Belmont Mine had already been idle for decades before Bolckow, Vaughan and Company decided in 1907 to give it another go. They reopened the mine with all the optimism of someone sinking money into a doomed venture, driving a new drift entrance uphill through shale to meet the main engine plane—a noble feat of engineering, if not foresight. The first ironstone emerged in 1909, heralding a brief flurry of activity.
For four years, shale and ironstone were separated underground, with only minimal sorting above ground due to pesky land boundaries—there being no room to dump it near the mine entrance. Proposals to improve this inefficient system were repeatedly shelved, as if procrastination was part of the mining charter. A modest scheme eventually saw the installation of a picking belt and this aerial ropeway. At the belt, young lads, doubtless thrilled with their career prospects, would sort shale from ironstone as the belt trundled on. Ironstone went to waiting wagons, while shale took a scenic ride uphill via the ropeway to its final resting place.
After this brief interlude of productivity, the mine ceased operations in February 1921. Dorman, Long and Company took over in 1929, but with the mine formally abandoned by 1933, they promptly dismantled everything. All that remains now are rusty stanchions, sterile soil, and a tableau of nature reclaiming a scar of industry—inevitably, and without haste.
Leave a Reply