button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

button title page
button previous page button next page
Page 130:-
who visit the vale of Keswick, and view its lake from Castle-rigg, Latrig, Swinside, and the vicarage, imagine inaccessible mountains only remain beyond the line of this amazing tract. But whoever takes a ride up Newland vale [1], will be agreeably surprised with some of the finest solemn pastoral scenes they have
[1] Here, in a hill called Gold-scope, are the remains of a famous ancient copper-mine, which exhibit some curious excavations, called the Pen-holes. One shaft, reaching from the top of the hill to the bottom (into which, if a large stone be let fall, it occasions a most tremendous noise) is met by a level passage, cut quite through the mountain, along which a stream of water (from Bank-beck) was conveyed to turn a draining wheel, at its meeting with the shaft.
These mines were wrought in Henry 8th's time, and some of the succeeding reigns. But the metal yielding a considerable quantity of gold, they came to be considered as royal mines, and occasioned a dispute between the crown and the duke of Somerset, then lord of the manor, and a discontinuance of the works. In 1757, Mr. Gilbert and company drained them to the very bottom, at the expense of about 100l. but did not find the metal such, or so plentiful, as to encourage them to proceed on at so prodigious a depth.
X.
button next page
gazetteer links
button -- Goldscope Lead Mine
button -- "Newland Vale" -- Newlands Valley (?)
button -- Keswick to Buttermere

button to main menu Lakes Guides menu.