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Pibble Mine

Creetown, Moneypool Burn, near Pibble, Kirkcudbrightshire.

Mine. Disused shafts shown at NX 52797 60451, NX 52714 60498 and NX 52347 60848.

EUCFA 1990. Desk-based assessments and surveys were carried out between October and December 2002 at three metal mining sites in Galloway. [see NX37SE 12 and NX59SW 1 also]. NX 528 604 Pibble Mine, near Creetown. This is a Scheduled mid-19th-century copper/lead mine with a well-preserved set of mining remains. These include drainage adits, shafts, a Cornish engine pumping house, and the remains of a water-powered ore crushing mill. Water supply to these features was via a large reservoir and system of lades.

Pibble Mine is about three miles north of Creetown - if you follow the right track - and is situated high on the slopes of a heathery hill. Now we were quite taken with Pibble, thought it was a marvelous place, and agreed that we would not hesitate to return and explore it properly at some later date. Its most dramatic feature is the ruin of a beam engine house - the last thing you would expect to find in this desolate place; there are also the remains of a boiler house, and, further down the hill, a fairly large waterwheel pit. Both the engine house and the waterwheel served the shafts and levels of the lower mine.

The upper mine was worked by two, or possibly three, levels driven along the NW-SE vein, with a connecting shaft somewhere in the region of a hundred feet deep. Jones and myself explored the lowest level, entering a large stope after wading along a passage chest-deep in water. At the end of the stope (where your intrepid reporter inadvertently toppled backwards into an ore hopper) we broke into the foot of the connecting shaft though were deterred from progressing further for Lings and Blundell, many fathoms above us, were dislodging rocks in an effort to guess the shaft's depth.

The top level offers some scope for serious exploration. At one time it followed the vein on in to the hill but the floor has fallen away, leaving a yawning stope just within the entrance. The collar of the connecting shaft is situated right outside the level entrance and although sound enough is a hazard

to walkers for it is not fenced. The railway sleeper capping has rotted extensively, and this rather increases the danger. [C4T]

Alternative Names: Creetown Mine

Notes: NX56SW 2.00 centred 5280 6045. NX56SW 2.01 5255 6069 beam engine house. NX56SW 2.02 5235 6084 crushing plant. The Pibble Mine complex is of considerable importance as a very well preserved mining landscape, with parts possibly dating to before the 17th century. Few such mine complexes survive in such good condition. The mines are almost certainly multi-period, although this is difficult to ascertain due to the use of similar technological techniques being employed through time. The mines were used to extract lead, copper and zinc, mainly from one primary vein which runs NW-SE under Pibble Hill. Only the general outline of the area was noted but within it were six worked areas. Three consist of open horizontal adits with associated spoil heaps, whilst two others have horizontal shafts. A further area of workings consisted of vertical shafts, some as much as 200-300ft deep. Further adits and horizontal shafts were noted. Report lodged with Dumfries and Galloway SMR and the NMRS. Sponsors: HS, Dumfries and Galloway Council.

Wolfenite (lead molybdate, PBMoO4) recorded by Patrick Dudgeon of Cargen. Associated with lead & copper oxidisation products.

Original coordinates appear to have been wildly innaccurate (possibly overwritten by coordinates for some other item).