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Bog lead mine was worked on and off from before 1739 until 1924.
The mine was one of the first to install a Boulton & Watt engine for pumping. In 1838 a beam pumping engine (called 'Queen Victoria') with a 70" diameter cylinder and built by the Coalbrookdale Company was installed here - the biggest engine in the area. The foundations of the beam pumping engine house beside Engine shaft were excavated when the shaft was capped and remain to mark the site. |
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Although the area looks quite bleak today, there was once a thriving community here with a school (now the Bog Visitor Centre, left), public house (recently converted into a holiday cottage, right) and a Miner's Institute. |
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The corrugated iron clad Miner's Institute building (left) was demolished in the 1980s, only the lower part, it's Stiperstone Quartzite walls, with interpretation boards survive today. |
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Near the present Car Park, the "Somme Tunnel", a 123 metre long level driven by Shropshire Mines Ltd., (c1917), to provide work for unemployed miners is still intact. The tunnel is home to rare bats, so has been gated to protect them. |
West of Engine shaft the embankment of a tramway from Ramsden shaft crosses an overgrown reservoir (built in 1872 to store water for ore dressing) and ends just behind the remains of the Miner's Institute, at the site of the 1920s aerial ropeway terminus, that once took the ore from the mine to Minsterley. |
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The best survival is the magazine where explosives such as gunpowder and fuses were stored until needed underground.
At the top of the site one of several reservoirs that once supplied water to the mine still survives and is now an ideal place for spotting dragonflies and other insects. Bunting's shaft was near here, roughly where the concrete blocks are today. |
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NGR SO 3565 9779
1739: Mine was being worked by Matthew Dore and Partners
c1777: In the ownership of Messrs Scott and Jeffries.
1777: Scott and Jeffries install first Boulton & Watt engine in this area - a 30" pumping engine, costing £800.
1782: Bolton & Watt engine sold to a local colliery.
c1789: Mine in the hands of John Weston & Co. They purchase a 45" engine from Boulton & Watt..
1797: 45" Bolton & Watt engine sold to Alex McDonald and taken to a Nuneaton colliery.
1838: The Bog Mine Company re-start the mine and erect a 70" pumping engine, made by the Coalbrookdale Company, on Old Engine Shaft.
(length of beam: 35ft. 10ins., length of piston stroke 10ft., bore of the pump pipes 18", depth of shaft 315 yards, water raised to drainage level 100 yards below surface).
1844: Work ceased again and the shaft stripped of it's pitwork.
1859: The Bog Mine Company in financial difficulties and a petition for winding it up made.
1870: Large scale mining restarts. A 200 H.P. pumping engine with 70" cylinder installed (weight of beam 26 tons, length of piston stroke 10ft., engine worked 16" plunger lift pumps. The engine was named "Charlotte" after Lady Charlotte Lyster, the lady of the manor and owner of the mine.)
1874: Engine recorded as working at 7 strokes per minute and drawing 877,000 gallons per day. But mine hitting problems, both financially and underground.
1875: Mine in the hands of the liquidators.
1883: Large scale mining for lead ends.
1890s: Captain Oldfield makes a last attempt to start full scale work at the mine, using Bunting's shaft for pumping.
1907: Bog Mines Ltd.(later Shropshire Mines Ltd.) take over and start expanding the mining operations.
1915: Ramsden shaft sunk, used an electric winding engne, and the mine worked for baryte (barium sulphate).
c1917: Somme tunnel driven by the Shropshire Mines Ltd..
1917: Aerial ropeway installed to carry baryte 5 miles for treatment at Minsterley, German prisoners of war used as labourers.
1924: Bog mine finally closes.
1960: Wooden headrame on Bunting's shaft finally dismantled.
1983: Miner's Institute demolished.
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