Honister Slate Mine

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Honister Slate Mine from Fleetwith Pike to the west.

Polished slab of green slate from Honister showing sedimentary features and small-scale faulting

The Honister Slate Mine is a group of slate mines and quarries located at the top of the Honister Pass. The earliest reference to quarrying at this location is from 1728.

1 History
2 Honister slate today
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

In 1870 very substantial underground workings existed under Honister Crag, with lesser workings on the opposite side of the valley at Yew Crags. There were also smaller scale underground workings on Dubbs Moor, together with a small opencast quarry - opencast quarrying had been carried on at Honister since the late 1600s. Slate from the Honister workings was at one time dragged on sleds down steep paths that traversed the cliffs to the top of Honister Pass (The Hause), but packhorse teams had been used to remove finished product from the opencasts for a great many years prior to 1830. In 1879 new owners installed self acting inclines to serve both the Honister and Yew Crags mines, these were remarkable and costly feats of engineering but they enabled far more efficient production. The incline serving the Dubbs Quarry was cleverly designed to lift product up the side of the vally from the quarry, and then lower it down the other valley side to The Hause. The company leased and operated other quarries in Borrowdale. In the mid 1920's, brilliantly engineered aerial ropeways served the Honister and Yew Crags Mines, though the external Yew Crags incline continued to be used until the late 1960s. Connection to the Hause/slate works from both incline and short aerial ropeway, was by petrol driven loco on a railway bridging the Seatoller-Buttermere road. This bridge was removed for scrap in the early 1970s.

By 1891 production had reached 3,000 tons a year and more than 100 men were employed. Dubbs mine was 'smaller metal' (metal being the terminology for slate), in that smaller pieces of slate (thus smaller slates), were obtainable due to geological changes, this did give rise to some instability. Dubbs Quarry ceased production around 1932, largely due to the difficulties and slowness of transporating finished product.

The First World War saw the mines revert to care and maintenance for a while due to labour shortages, but it did not take long to get production recommenced after the cessation of hostilities. By 1926 the slate works at the Hause had been electrified (powered by two large Ruston 4 cyl. diesel generators), together with considerable modifications undertaken throughout the quarries, and the mine's fortunes began to improve with significantly increased production. At this time the 'new' Kimberley Mine was started from the Road End Level, with a substantial 600 foot long 14ft. x 14ft internal electrically powered incline. During the mid 1890's it had been proposed to drive a level through to the Dubbs Quarries, and indeed a start was made and some 100 meters of level driven, but the project was shelved in favour of further developing the more significant workings under Honister Crag. Despite an enforced closure from 1943 to 1945 during the Second World War production continued through the 1950s and 1960s although Yew Crag mine closed in 1966 due to difficult roof conditions.

After languishing for ten years or so, in 1981 the company and it's quarries was acquired by Mr B.R. Moore and his Father, Mr R.D.Moore, and a significant programme of capital improvements was undertaken. This included the installation of rail bourne Eimco Rockershovels, electric battery locomotives, and imporoved rolling stock - the first use of such equipment in an underground Lake District quarry (the quarries had operated surface diesel loco's from about 1930 to the late 1950s). In 1985 the Company and its quarries were sold to Alfred McAlpine Plc, who owned Penrhyn Quarries (Bethesda, N.Wales). The latter Co., as a result of earlier Planning Permission, proceeded to open a new opencast (on the Dubbs side of Honister Crag), on the Honister Vein some 200 metres from the Hopper Opencast (Kimberley Vein) - the Hopper Opencast being filled with waste from the new excavation. McAlpines operated the quarries for some four years until ceasing operations, but they were held on a care and maintenance basis until handed over to the present operators.