| << back | Cupola Pond | Grid Ref SK 33606670 | |||||||||||||||
List of
Species
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Habitat: This
peaceful landscape was once an industrial hotbed of activity. Stone Edge
smelt mill is one of the best preserved examples in England (See
Historical info) Today’s Four pools are set in gritstone
heather/blueberry moorland. There are elements of sphagnum lawns left on
the pond edges but no where near as much as in the late 1980’s prior to
a change in water quality. This is the start of the Pennines, England’s
backbone, the views around here are superb. A great place to watch the
world go by.
Access: This site is found just off the A632 Chesterfield to Matlock road.There is a public footpath running adjacent to the site. From Chesterfield
either turn right onto the B5057 and take the first left, Belland Lane,
after the Red Lion Pub or turn right onto Belland Lane at the Three
Horse Shoes Pub at Spitewinter. The lane is narrow and must be taken
with care.
These classic
moorland pools are very accessible as a public footpath runs by them.
This allows visitors on foot to watch this upland Dragonfly community
with comparative ease. There is room for parking on the verge for two
cars at 336666 from here one can walk through a squeeze stile on the
footpath alongside the first pool with the chimney on your right. Continue along the well worn path scanning the pool edges for damsels and dragons and you will come after a few minutes, up to the other three ponds. Stick to the paths and do not wander at will.
Specialities: Good
numbers of Emerald Damselfly with upwards of 300 in 2002. Four Spotted
Chasers abound in June with large numbers of Black Darter in late
summer.
This was the Holy Grail site for White
Faced Darter first found by Kevin Hennegan in 1987 to and the last
exuvia found by Rod Dunn in 1990. Although here at Derbyshire
Dragonflies, we like to be proved wrong, it is highly unlikely these
splendid dragons will return. It is however accessible moorland site if
you wish to see Black Darter.
Historical
Information: This site is an ancient monument. The
Stone Edge lead smelt mill is a well preserved example of a
reverberatory or ‘cupola’ smelt mill. The monument includes the smelt
mill itself, a condensing flue and chimney (for recovering lead fumes),
and a mill pond to supply water to power the bellows for the slag hearth
of the smelt mill.
The smelt mill
used reverberatory or ‘cupola’ furnace to smelt the lead ore. These
heated the ore from a separate fire within the furnace, and used natural
draught for their airflow instead of relying on mechanical blast. The
slags from the furnace contained appreciable quantities of lead, which
was extracted by crushing and washing, followed by resmelting in a slag
hearth (a shaft furnace fuelled by coke and blown by water power) The southernmost
feature of the site is a mill pond and dam, which held water to power
the bellows of the slag hearth. To the north west of this stands the
square chimney, which is perhaps the oldest surviving industrial chimney
in England. Around the chimney lies a complex system of flues, surviving
as underground tunnels. The smelt mill was rebuilt as least once. To the
north of these features, the remainder of the site is occupied by tips
of slag and the earthworks of tanks, forming remains of the washing
floor where slag were crushed and washed to extract entrapped lead. The smelt mill
was built around 1770, and a slag hearth was added in the early 19thCentury.
A Spanish slag hearth added by 1850 was the earliest in England. The
smelt mill closed around 1860. And as Michael Caine apparently once said.’’
Not a lot of people know that’’.
Grub
Stop: Well you have just driven past a pub down the
lane. Or why not take some snap (that’s sandwiches to those outside of Derbyshire)
and take in the superb views.
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