Inside First Room

Having excavated as much as we wanted in the first room (the furthest West) there are a few questions which we can't answer.....

1. Why is the North wall stepped out at the bottom yet the West wall isn't?
2. Why is there a big gap in the middle of the floor?
3. On the North wall there's 1 stone that protrudes and on the top face has been chiselled out so there is a recess - why?
4. Lots of coal dust on the floor - what was it used for?
5. The East side of the room has a nice stone flagged floor but the other side of the "gap" it's rough, why?
6. Are there signs of burning on the West wall half way up?

Only 15 years?

I just found this....

here

No longer a reverberating cupola.

I just found this.......

here.......

Rope Works

Just found this....

It comes from.....

showing that by 1817 Bower's Mill was a rope works.

Research at Sheffield Archives

Having searched for Bower's mill on the www we found references in the National Archives http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=199-md37073708&cid=0#0

The records in question were held at Sheffield - handy!

We visited on 6th Feb 2012 ad this is some of what we found:

And below is our "translation":

Bower's Mill 6th, August 1744,

Gentlemen,
                   The Secretarys of the 2nd, Instant I have, Shall observe to pay no
more money for pretended Debts as owing by Geo: Clarke for the Companys
Account 'till I have your orders,       I have paid James Potter no money 'tho he
had demanded sundry times, believing he Charged more than due,    will take an
Account this week of all hitherto Claimed & Send it you, . . . . . . . _________
          4th Instant at Bakewell Draw on Secretary Farrington for £111 .  .
Excise money payable to yo, Commiss rs, 28 days after date, ___ as the Excise
this time runs so Low shall be Short of Cash & desires to know if you permit
me to draw upon you for what more I Shall have Occasion to pay for Bought Ore etc a,
          As many of yo, Miners cannot Support their Familys for a Quarter without
borrowing Money and their Ore not being dressed up I know not how to lend them
Safely, thinks it best to dress up & measure yo, Ore twice each Quarter I then can
know what money to advance them As was always done in Jethro Normans time
      I believe in so doing we Shall raise Considerably more Ore, Consequently may
lower yo, price of Cope, __________ Annex'd you have yo, Lead Account to 24th, June
 which hopes you'll find right. . . . . . . I am Your Obed t, Serv t,
                                                                      Joseph Whitfield
P.S. I am just informed Geo, Clarkes wife
sets out tomorrow morning by y, Derby
wagon for London, having heard by a
letter from Widdow Holden to Geo: Clarke
junior that her husband was Imprisoned?
                               Idem          W:____

We assume this is a letter to the shareholders of the London Lead Company.
yo, = your
We're not sure of the term "Cope" (2nd last line) - Coke or Coal would make sense but the word really does look like Cope..........
The word IS in fact cope and relates to the term "lot and cope" which is some sort of duty that we don't fully understand.
            

The Reverberating Cupola

Cupola smelting

The mills which had superseded the ancient bolehills in the late 16th century, a development described above in section 3, were themselves superseded in the 18th century by the gradual introduction of a new type of furnace known as the cupola.^[37]

The old mills had a number of disadvantages. Their characteristic overheating and dissemination of polluting fumes made it necessary to close the smelter down at the end of each day’s work. The hearth burned out quickly and regular weekly repairs or rebuilding were necessary – between 24 June and 29 September 1657, for instance, thirteen new hearths were required at the Upper Mill in Wirksworth^[38] Water-powered smelting mills were restricted to riverside sites and “white coal” fuel required a good supply of timber. By the 18th century timber supplies were running out and, where coke or coal was used because of timber shortages, impurities, particularly sulphur, were introduced into the lead. It was, finally, less efficient than the cupola.

The cupola was a reverberatory furnace. The fuel was burned in a combustion chamber at the side of the furnace, separate from the “charge” of ore, thus avoiding any contamination. This removed the disadvantage in using coal, which was far more plentiful than timber. The ore was loaded from a hopper into a concave furnace with a low, arched roof and a tall chimney or a flue at the opposite end from the combustion chamber. The flames and heated gases from the fuel were drawn across the charge by the draught from the chimney and beaten down by reverberation from the low roof. Slag on the surface of the molten lead was raked off and the lead itself poured into an iron pot at the side, before being ladled into moulds.

Several factors contributed to the cupola’s greater efficiency than the smelting mill. Unlike the smelting mill, the cupola could be operated continuously. Since the air flow over the ore was less powerful than that from the bellows of the blast furnace fewer lead particles were blown away. Further lead was saved by the fact that since the fuel and the charge were separate none of the lead was lost into the ash. Since no water power was needed the cupola had a fourth theoretical advantage of being freed from the riverside location of the blast furnace, and able to be placed in the most convenient site for supply of ore and coal. However the higher temperatures needed to melt the slag recovered from the primary melt required a water powered furnace and, since slag mills tended to be placed next to the cupolas, most cupolas remained in riverside sites.

Many cupolas had long horizontal flues, which were introduced to trap pollutants before they could be discharged into the air. Since the pollutants included metal vapour, the sweepings of the flue could also be recovered for re-smelting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derbyshire_lead_mining_history

Reading Resourses

http://www.pdmhs.com/PDFs/ScannedBulletinArticles/Bulletin%2011-1%20-%20Derbyshire%20Lead%20Smelting%20in%20the%20Eighteenth%20.pdf

http://www.pdmhs.com/PDFs/ScannedBulletinArticles/Bulletin%2012-4%20-%20An%20Eighteenth%20Century%20Red%20Lead%20Production%20Record.pdf

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7kwDJclq3jgC&pg=PA197&lpg=PA197&dq=%22bowers+mill%22+-halifax+ashover&source=bl&ots=qVlDBtSwAa&sig=yaGZ7HjXpx087w22X2EzrlsDNfU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XictT43BO8HX0QXj9LSsCA&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22bowers%20mill%22%20-halifax%20ashover&f=false page 197

http://willsdb.gukutils.org.uk/DBY/WillsO.html 1774

http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/7151-road-development-in-south-yorkshire-and-north-derbyshire-1700-1850/