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Susanna Mine

Lady Manners' Scar, Leadhills, Lanarkshire.

Mine (Lead), 16-18th centuries.

"The Susanna Mine was not a single shaft but an area rich in galena veins and was worked by several shafts and opencast workings. It is one of the older areas worked in the village.

It was worked by the Foulis family from the 1570s. When the Hope family took over the mining in 1638 it was still a very rich area. As ore was extracted the workings became deeper to reach the ore bringing with it the problems of water and drainage.

By the late 1700s The Scots Mining Company who had taken the lease on this area looked into the drainage problem and decided a steam engine was the best solution. Eventually an engine built by William Symington was decided upon. It was designed to raise 72 gallons of water per minute from a depth of 30 fathoms below the Gripps drainage level. Work on the engine shaft was started in 1796. The water problem was so great that they were only able to take the shaft 13 fathoms below the drainage level. Men were working in eighteen inches of water even though Symingtons engine was pumping out its designed amount. Water was pouring on the men from every angle through cracks in the bedrock.

By 1800 workings in this shaft were abandoned and the engine and its large engine house that had been built were demolished and removed. There is no record of what happened to the engine. Visiting the area today there is no trace of the building, shaft or the engine. There is an area on the hillside that is tipped boiler ash and clinker that is the only sign of the possible site." [K. Ledger]

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"Susanna Vein outcropped on the right hand side of the medial ridge [of Lady Manners' Scar] and dipped at c.45 degrees down to the right. Each platform of dump material marks mine entrances at different levels of working the vein." [Leadhills Estate]

Given coordinates are for what is probably the main 'Boundary Shaft' that linked several levels of the 'North Mine', including the Poutshiel & Gripps Levels. Some of these levels exited to surface along Lady Manners' Scar, although the portals have been buried / backfilled.

Alternative Names: Boundary Shaft, Engine Shaft

Notes: Given coordinates derived from BGS GeoIndex.

Whilst the Boundary Shaft lies outwith the Scheduled Ancient Monument (SAM) area, the downhill adits & shafts are legally protected as part of the SAM (digging forbidden without formal consent).

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While not proven, the most likely candidate for Lady Manners is Grace Pierrepont (1575-1650), daughter of Sir Henry Pierrepont and Francis Cavendish. Her grandmother was Bess of Hardwick (Countess of Shrewsbury) and she was married to Sir George Manners (1569-1623). grandson of the 1st Earl of Rutland. On 20 May 1636, she founded Lady Manners School in Bakewell, Derbyshire.

There are however several other candidates - wives and daughters of various members of the Manners family, descendants of the Dukes of Rutland. Grace's sister Elizabeth married Thomas Erskine, 1st Earl of Kellie.

Hydrographic Feeds: None

Hydrographic Resurgences: None