Wanlockhead and Leadhills

The walk starts at Wanlockhead Mining Museum on the site of the Quaker company's Smelt Mill of 1710. The museum houses a large collection of geological specimens alongside the history of the mineral railway.

The Loch Nell Mine runs under the village for some 980 feet (300 metres) underground, featuring life-size models of miners at work. The most unusual exhibit is the working model of a water-powered beam engine used to pump water out of the Straitsteps Mine further along the village street. Beyond the smelt mills are the conical spoil heap and buildings of the Glencrieff Mine (worked for 250 years until the 1950s, descending 1,600 feet / 500 metres). Further up are the water wheel pit, Bay Mine (now a picnic site), the village burial ground (evidencing the short 35–40 year life expectancy of lead miners), foundations of a water-powered crushing mill, and the ruins of the last smelt mills with circular scars of old fume tunnels on the hillside above.

Back through the village and heading north, the walk along the road to Leadhills provides expansive views of the mine-scarred Lowther Hills. Beside the road is the track of the disused mineral railway, providing an alternative return walk.

The village of Leadhills is equally steeped in mining lore and technology. The Miners Reading Society Library is found here (opened in 1741, it is the oldest lending library in Britain). In the village graveyard, evidence that life was not always short is found on the tombstone of John Taylor, who still walked the Lowther Hills at age 116 and died in his 138th year.

Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.