Ruined winding house and chimney

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Ruined remains of a ruined winding engine house and chimney probably dating from c.1842-50 and originally built to serve the ‘Bog’ shaft of a now abandoned lead mine. The ruins are situated in the midst of a hilly, overgrown, unattractive and thoroughly depressing landscape, itself a result of the mining activity, less than a mile to the N of Newtownards.

Little remains of the engine house save largely overgrown remnants of the bluestone rubble built walls. There are tall semicircular arched openings to the SE and SW facing wall remains. The ground to the N of the engine house slopes away and at the lower level some sections of walling remain but most of the structure has collapsed. Apparently this engine house was originally three
storey but today little can be discerned of its original appearance.

The chimney lies a short distance to the SW of the engine house. It is square in plan and has a base roughly 2.3m2. The chimney is built of bluestone rubble and is battered, the top quarter of the stack is in brick, however, and ‘steps in’ slightly. The chimney is roughly 18.5m in height.

The entrance to the shaft itself was a short distance to the NW of the engine house.

Historical information

Lead mining in Whitespots began in 1780 when the ‘Bangor and Newtownards Mining Company’ was formed. The partners in the company were Robert Ward of Castle Ward, Rev. James Clewlow of Bangor, Sir John Blackwood of Ballyleidy (Clandeboy), James Millar, a mining engineer from Mayo, and Robert Stewart, the future Lord Londonderry. It was from Stewart’s father, Alexander, that the land was leased. Mining commenced in October of that year under Millar’s supervision but frustrated at their efforts to find rich enough veins, the partners abandoned the mine in September 1783.

In 1827 a Manx company under the title ‘Newtownards Mines’ secured a lease of Whitespots from the 3rd Marquis of Londonderry and recommenced mining in the area on a much larger scale. An old windmill on the site was renovated and readapted to power various pieces of machinery, and a complex of mining related structures were constructed. By 1840, however, Londonderry had become concerned about the relatively small return he was receiving in the form of royalties from the Manxmen. He commissioned John Taylor, an engineer who was employed by the Ulster Mining Company at Conlig (just to the north of Whitespots), to survey the mines. In March 1842 Taylor produced a report criticising the methods of mining at Whitespots in which the Manx owners employed what has been termed a ‘smash and grab’ method in which ore was extracted in a haphazard fashion and at relatively high expense, whilst the full potential of the veins remained untapped. Thus in 1842 when a renewed lease was granted to the company (most of whose original partners appear to have been forced to resign), clauses were contained within the document to actively discourage the stripping of the ore and to encourage more careful (and ultimately more profitable) mining methods.

As a result, the company greatly increased expenditure on the venture, new veins were discovered and mine began to yield ore in greater quantities. A new shaft was sunk to the south and a new engine house erected, whilst more buildings including a counting house with ‘dining room’ were constructed around the main shaft near the windmill. In 1850 the company acquired the Conlig Mine also.
The success of the Newtownards and Ulster Mining Company (as the partnership became known after 1850) was short lived. After 1853 the yields of the Whitespots mine began to decline. The partners were not prepared for the newly opened veins to run dry so quickly and though richer veins may have existed, they were not prepared repeat their investment. The Conlig mine was abandoned in 1853 and by 1865 yields had dropped so dramatically at Whitespots the that the company auctioned the lease of the mines in both townlands, along with all of the mining equipment, in March of that year.

The lease was bought by Frederick Blackwood, Lord Dufferin, ironically to discourage future mining at Conlig which he had long regarded as something of an eyesore, being right next to his Clandeboy estate. Blackwood had little interest in holding on to the lease of Whitespots, however,.and at first he attempted to surrender it to the Marquis of Londonderry. Londonderry’s agent, however, insisted that anyone who held the lease had to adhere to the rigid terms of 1842 which stipulated active mining activity. In order to avoid this (for mining in the area was of course unprofitable) Dufferin eventually bought the title to the royalties outright.

In 1879 and again in 1912 there were attempts to reopen the mine both of which came to nothing. Today the former area covered by the Whitespots mine remains barren and inhospitable, largely unforsaken due to the prevalence of the waste lead left behind after the mining activities.

This engine house is believed to have been built between c.1842 and 1850 to serve the ‘Bog’ shaft. It appears to be shown on the revised OS map of 1858-60 though, strangely, the chimney is not readily apparent. The inventory of the buildings on the mines prepared in December 1864, just prior to the sale of the mine lists ‘one double acting engine 24 in. cycl. 5ft stroke driven by one flue boiler 31ft. 6in. long & 6ft. diameter. This engine has winding and pumping gear & crusher attached’.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.654/P/1 Londonderry Papers Journal of the work carried out by the Bangor and Newtownards mining Company 1780-83.
2 PRONI D.654/P/3 Londonderry Papers Report on the lordship of the lead mines 1829
3 PRONI OS Maps 1st ed. 1834, Co. Down 6.
4 PRONI D.654/P/8 Londonderry Papers Report on the lead mines by John Taylor, 7 Mar 1842.
5 PRONI D.654/P/4 Londonderry Papers Lease between F.B. [?]Byrne and G.W. Dumbell relating to the Newtownards lead mines, 5 April 1842.
6 PRONI D.654/P/9 Londonderry Papers Report on the Irish lead mines by G. Elliot, Dec.1851
7 PRONI D.654/P/5 Londonderry Papers Lead mines papers 1858-60.
8 PRONI OS maps 1st rev. 1858-60, Co. Down 6.
9 PRONI D.654/P/6 Londonderry Papers Assignment between G.W. Dumbell and Lord Dufferin, 25 May 1865.
10 PRONI D.654/P/7 Londonderry Papers Surrender of lease between Lord Dufferin and Lord Londonderry, 3 Dec 1867.
11 PRONI D.1071/K8/4/- Dufferin Papers Documents concerning the Conlig and Whitespots mines including an inventory of the materials and buildings on the Newtownards lead mines 21 Dec. 1864.

Secondary sources
1 A. Woodrow 'A history of the Conlig and Whitespots lead mines' (Northern Mine Society 1978). This is an extremely detailed (and somewhat specialised) book which quotes from Manx records concerning the ‘Newtown Ards Mines’ 1827-28.
2 W McCutcheon 'The industrial archaeology of Northern Ireland' (HMSO 1980), plate 142.
3 E.R.R. Green 'The industrial archaeology of County Down' (HMSO 1963), p.52.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Ruined remains of a winding engine house and chimney dating from c.1842-50 to serve a lead mine, but abandoned in the 1860s. The chimney is still largely intact, but it is difficult to discern much of the engine house.