Allenheads village was founded on the lead mining industry, without this rich supply the area would probably never have been established as it would have been considered too inhospitable due to it's elevated location.
Alan Smith gave me a tour of the area surrounding Allenheads village which really helped to put things into perspective, giving me an idea of the geographical and cultural landscape and history. It also helped to bring into focus some of the information which I received on my visit to Killhope Lead Mining Museum during the first visit to ACA.
We began at the source, the watershed, high above the valley, an area of land where the water collects and is held. The land itself is reminiscent of a bog in texture, though as the water is the source of the river and is constantly moving it is not as rich in terms of biodiversity.
The village of Allenheads was founded on this supply, it's location further down the valley making full use the building force of the water. Alan and I traced this journey seeing the ways that the water was controlled and manipulated using dams and other methods of channeling to make full use of it's potential power and other properties in the various processes of mining the landscape.
We passed one of the last remaining examples of a 'cockpit' on the UK, a strange connection to the past. We also discussed the division of land in the pre-farming times of the mines, where each miner and his family were self-sufficient. Each would have had a designated piece of land, known as a 'stint', a term appropriated into our language.
One of the most intriguing things was the link between mining and the base elements - earth, fire, air and water. Remnants of this connection and the areas mining history can be seen everywhere, the landscape itself has been altered by the relentless churning of earth which has been deposited into large mounds, now softened with age and vegetation. It is hard to imagine the scale of the mining, or how the landscape would have looked in its heyday.
