*SHETLAND
“Copper mining started in Shetland in 1789 when Alexander Crieghton of Tynemouth and London discovered copper prospect at Sandlodge [or Sand Lodge] some 12 miles south of Lerwick, and at Garthsness some 20 miles south of Lerwick. In order to exploit these prospects he formed a partnership with Thomas Williams of Llanidan and Pascoe Grenfell of London.”
In 1790 Williams sent a party of Welsh miners to Shetland. Leaving in September with 12 tons of ore for Beaumaris. According to local tradition they discovered that a Shetland workman had been adding copper coins to samples being tested for their copper content in order to prolong his employment. Creighton continued his efforts to establish a mine in Shetland. At first he concentrated his attention on the prospect beside the house of John Bruce at Sandlodge, sending in 1793 a ship load of iron ore to Newcastle. In 1800 with a London flour miller, Robert Redman they formed the Shetland Mining Company. Creighton then broke with the company and tried to raise capital to work the Garthsness prospect. In 1800 Robert Redman sent a party of Cornish miners, led by Matthew Thomas as mine captain to start work. In 1802 Richard Trevithick supplied a steam engine and in June 1802 a smack loaded with copper ore left for Swansea. By July 1805 they were down to 34 fathoms and pumping out 1500 gallons of water a day. By October this had risen to 6000 a day and the shaft was 38 fathoms deep. By December at a total cost of £1050, the shaft was finished, being 40 fathoms deep. In August 1807 mining ceased when the last of the coal stocks ran out. Three levels had been driven from the foot of the shaft to intersect the lodes. In June 1808 John Fleming, a minister with an interest in minerals, found the mine full of water and the engine dismantled.
“The copper deposit at Sandlodge is a massive vein of sparry ankerite with some chalcopyrite, in Old Red Sandstone. At the surface the vein has been oxidise to hematite and malachite. Much, if not all of the ore deposits obtained from the mine seems to have come from these near surface deposits, but in the 1800s and later in the 1870s much money was wasted putting down shafts to reach a rich lode that probably does not exist. Again in the 1920s a company was floated to work the mine, but no mining seems to have taken place.” [based on] Flinn (1990) ibid.
Sandwick Lodge NGR HU 437 247 Explorer Shetland
Levels and shafts. Ironstone was worked from the land to under the Sound of Mousa. Interesting mining relics.
http://www.archive.org/stream/specialreportson11geol#page/n227/mode/2up accessed 14/11/10
Jeffreys, Alan 2008 Mines in Scotland 42
Hibbert 162-164 Note IX Sandlodge Mines p 105 shafts 22 fathoms deep.
Landless 55 calls it Sandlodge Mine with NGR HU 437 247 and HU 433 258
Miller 1897 430-431 Parish of Sandwick on Orkney. Pb mine “I have since learned from the “Statistical Account of the Parish of Sandwick, that the working of the mine penetrate into the rock for about a hundred yards, but it has been long abandoned, “as a speculation which did not pay”.
MM 217
Rice, C M 2002 Metalliferous minerals 🇮🇳 Trewin, N H (ed) 2002 The Geology of Scotland. The Geological Society, London. Sandlodge Mine 448.
Wilson 1921 148
and there is plenty more where that came from 😮
Cutting coal in my spare time.