It’s hard to imagine that this was once a hive of activity, that Arkengarthdale was ever full of the noise and bustle of lead mining. Imagine walking miles from home to work in a dangerous mine or smelt mill, paid a pittance and with a very low life expectancy. Miners in Arkengarthdale were some of the lucky ones: many were provided with housing by the company owners.
A short journey over the moor from Reeth will bring you to the tiny blink-and-you'll-miss-it hamlet of Arkle Town. This big name for a tiny place dates back to when lead mining was an important industry with big ambitions for growth. There were once around 300 miners working in Arkengarthdale. The whole dale would have looked and felt very different.
The lead mining industry flourished for a while but then struggled in the face of cheaper imports until it became uneconomic and the mines closed, leaving their desolate grey ruins behind. The spoil heaps and former hush mines have become part of the landscape, some leaving scars, others greening over to hide their industrial past.
The ruins of Surrender Lead Smelting Mill can still be seen, on the Langthwaite – Low Row road. This mill was in use 1880. It's incredible to imagine that once men would have worked here, feeding a furnace that reached 700 degrees, slogging away in shifts that lasted up to fourteen hours a day.
Have you visited any of the other remains of lead mines or smelt mills in the Yorkshire Dales?