Old Cumbria Gazetteer - Fairfield Mine, Lakes


	Fairfield Mine, Lakes
	Fairfield Mine
site name:-	Tongue Gill
civil parish:-	Lakes (formerly Westmorland)
county:-	Cumbria
locality type:-	iron mine
locality type:-	mine
coordinates:-	NY340098
1Km square:-	NY3409
10Km square:-	NY30
references:-	Adams, John: 1988: Mines of the Lake District Fells: Dalesman Books (Lancaster, Lancashire):: ISBN 0 85206 931 6

evidence:-	old text:- Postlethwaite 1877 (3rd edn 1913) placename:- Tongue Gill Mine item:- iron ore; haematite
source data:-	Book, Mines and Mining in the English Lake District, by John Postlethwaite, Keswick, published by W H Moss and Sons, Whitehaven, Cumberland now Cumbria, 1877; published 1877-1913. goto source page 127:- "EWER GAP, RED TARN, AND TONGUE GILL MINES" "The Iron Mines in the volcanic rocks of English Lakeland were at one time of some importance, although inferior to those in the Skiddaw Slates. Robinson says (A.D. 1709), "Langdale and Conningston mountains do abound most with iron veins, which supplies with ore and keeps constantly going a furnace in Langdale, where great plenty of good and malleable iron is made, not much inferior to that of Dantzic." The ore which supplied this furnace is supposed to have been raised at Red Tarn, which lies at the head of Browney Gill, about two and a half miles south-west of Langdale, and in Tongue Gill, at the foot of Fairfield, about four miles north-east of Langdale." "..." goto source page 128:- "..." "The high price realized for iron about 38 or 40 years ago, caused the mines in Tongue Gill to be opened again; and about 1,300 tons of ore were raised; but the mines were not remunerative, owing chiefly to the absence of railway communication. A considerable quantity of haematite ore has also been obtained from the rocks in the Volcanic Series at Dunnerdale, in the Duddon Valley."

:-	Near the meet of the two Tongue Gills. Haematite veins worked about 1700; last worked 1876.
	Adams, John: 1988: Mines of the Lake District Fells: Dalesman Books (Lancaster, Lancashire):: ISBN 0 85206 931 6

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