There is a book:
LOUISA Westerkirk NY 3126 9960 Dumfriesshire
Explorer 322
About a mile upstream from Meggart Water at the head of a tributary valley called Glenshanna Burn, on the side of Grey Hill. It is three quarters of a mine from Glendinning Farm, in the parish of Westerkirk, in the Eskdale Hills. It was the only mine to produce antimony in workable quantities in Britain.
It was operated for three short periods between 1793 and 1922.
Silurian greywacke is the country rock of the area which forms most of the Eskdale Hills. The mine has been driven straight into the hill along the line of a large fault-plane, and the minerals found occur in pockets in the crushed breccia. The principal ore is Stibnite (Antimony Sulphide, Sb2S3), which is reported to have occurred in masses up to 20 inches in thickness. Galena (Lead Sulphide PbS); Jamesonite Lead Sulphantimonite, Pb4FeSb6S14); Calcite (CaCo3); etc, have also been recorded. Some of the ore seems to have been a very complex mixture of Stibnite, Galena, and Zinc blende (Zinc Suphide, ZnS), but at least some of the Stibnite was found more or less pure, enabling the miners to select high-grade ore for smelting. A recent [1965] analysis of a sample of Stibnite ore gave the following composition:
Antimony 53.15%
Arsenic 1.32%
Lead 2.60%
Copper Trace
Nickel Trace
Zinc 0.09%
Iron 2.13%
The local laird, Sir James Johnstone of Westerhall, conducted a survey for minerals on his land and discovered antimony c1788. He formed the Westerhall Mining Company with Captain Cochran and Mr Tait as shareholders and work began in 1793. The mine was worked on three main levels between 1793 and 1798 and produced over 100 tons of Antimony, worth £8,400. Ore was smelted at the mine and evidence of this activity can be traced by the banks of the Meggart Water where water power was used to drive the bellows. Fuel was obtained locally from peat or by coal from Canonbie, which no doubt was the source of limestone used in the manufacture of pure Antimony. The product was used for speculums, bell metal and types for printing.
Glendinning Antimony Mine. General Dirom's Section
Forty men were employed, working a six-hour day for wages of £23-£26 per annum, with the usual liberties of land for a garden and some grazing. The company built a village for the workers, called Jamestown, on the heugh [= hill] by the Meggat Water. A granary was built to store meal for re-sale to miners in winter or times of dearth, at the rate at which it was purchased. A school followed, and the miners, with the earnestness for self-improvement typical of most lead-mining communities, started a library. This was instituted in 1792 with a gift of £15 worth of books, quickly augmented by the miners' own purchases. The minute book of the Jamestown Library indicates the concern of the miners for poetry, philosophy, comparative religion, geology and political economy.
The mine was re-opened ninety years later in 1880 by Sir Frederick Johnstone, but closed again in 1892, by which time some 90 tons of Antimony had been raised from the long-abandoned levels. In 1919 another attempt was made and new shafts sunk below the original workings. Mining finally ceased in 1922, the levels left to flood with water, the surface equipment dismantled and the rolling hills around Glendinning were left to the sheep.
Things to look out for: [vide Ian Hebden]. Only one level is open, this is the one marked high level on the section. This runs for a short distance to a very large roof fall. On the surface by a blocked main shaft are two really smart skips. The smelter, easily missed, was in the field by the track up to the mine from Jamestown, just over the wall by the river. Many fragments of large broken crucibles are to be found there.
Butt, John 1967 The Industrial Archaeology of Scotland. p 94 refers to the mine as Westerkirk
Callendar, Ron M 2006 The Louisa Mine revisited. British Mining (80) 88-93, 9 figs.
McCracken, Alex 1965 The Glendinning Antimony Mine (Louisa Mine) Trans DGNHAS
Cutting coal in my spare time.