Shropshire Routes to Roots

The lead mines of the Stiperstones area lie to the west of the Stiperstones ridge some twelve mile south-west of the Shropshire County town of Shrewsbury. It is a tightly located area largely contained within a six mile radius of the village of Shelve. Yet in 1872 this area was able to produce over 10% of the nation's lead ore requirement. The peak of output was in 1875 when nearly 8,000 tons of lead were produced.

The Tankerville Mine image illustrates how many of the mines of the area looked at the time. Tankerville is about 3 Km south up the hillside beyond the Snailbeach Mine.

The Snailbeach mine was the most productive of all the pits in the area producing a total of 131,900 tons of lead ore in its lifetime.

From 1845 to 1913 over 241,000 tons of lead ore came from the mines of Shropshire, more than half of this from the Snailbeach Mine.

A story of the Snailbeach Mining Disaster  (Opens in new window)

Why here?

The minerals found in this area are mainly confined to one particular rock strata: the Mytton Beds. These beds are over 1000ft thick and consist of mainly hard flagstone and gritstone. They lie to the west of the Stiperstones ridge in two regions; one long narrow band, known as The Eastern Outcrop, on the western slopes and another area, known as The Western Outcrop, centered on the village of Shelve.

The lead ore, most commonly galena (lead sulphide), is found in vertical faults in the rock in close association with the white mineral calcite. The other main minerals mined here were: zinc; witherite; barite; calcite and some small amounts of fluorspar, copper and silver.