High Skears Lead Mine
If you want to walk straight out of Middleton-in-Teesdale and into the old lead-mining landscape of Hudeshope, High Skears is a really good place to aim for.
The walk is only around two miles each way, but the landscape changes quickly once you leave the village behind. Hudeshope Beck leads you north between the hills, with old levels, lime workings, spoil and mining remains appearing along the valley before you eventually reach the broken stone walls of High Skears.
High Skears is easy to underestimate at first. There is no single grand building or obvious mine entrance announcing that you have arrived. Instead, the remains are spread across the hillside below the Skears Hushes: ruined walls, low stone structures, dressing floors, spoil and ground that has been completely reshaped by mining.
Once you know what you are looking at, it starts to make much more sense. This was not simply a hole driven into the hill. High Skears had a mine shop, ore-processing areas, a washing floor, bouseteems for storing ore, a wheel pit and other working structures, while the hushes above show just how extensively the hillside itself was worked.
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Quick Facts
Distance: Around 4 miles return
Time: Around 2 hours walking
Start and finish: Main car park, Middleton-in-Teesdale
Postcode: DL12 0SL
Route type: Out and back
Terrain: Village streets, paths beside Hudeshope Beck, field paths and uneven mining ground
Difficulty: Easy to moderate
High Skears grid reference: NY 9502 2825
Known working period: 1845–1881
Worked by: Backhouse & Co., followed by the London Lead Company
OS Map: Explorer OL31 North Pennines*
Digital route: View the route*
GPX file: Free download here
The Route
Start from the main car park on Horsemarket in Middleton-in-Teesdale, DL12 0SL, and head through the village past the Teesdale Hotel.
Continue towards Hude and cross Hude Bridge over the beck. Once across the bridge, turn right and begin walking uphill along Hude.
Look for the wooden footpath sign between the houses on the right and take the stone steps. Follow the path as it leaves the houses behind and enters the woodland.
Keep to the main easy to follow path past the houses and into the woodland paths. You will eventually pass a small bridge dropping away on your right. Do not cross this bridge, carry straight on through the woodland.
Continue until you reach the larger bridge directly ahead. Cross this one and carry straight on, following the route towards Skears.
The walk now takes you towards the old lime kilns. Continue beyond them through the woodland and then bear right, climbing the steps into the open fields.
From here the old mining landscape becomes much easier to see. The broken ground and huge spoil-covered slopes of the Skears area spread out ahead, with the remains of High Skears sitting beneath the hushes on the eastern side of Hudeshope.
This is the turning point for this walk.
What You Are Actually Looking At
High Skears is one of those mine sites that makes more sense when you stop looking for one obvious entrance or building.
The tall roofless walls are the most noticeable remains, but around them are low stone structures, terraces, spoil and the remains of the ore-dressing area. A crushing mill, ore store, wheel pit and washing floor are all recorded here, along with the foundations of a miner's house. The North Pennines Hudeshope guide also identifies remains of the mine shop and bouseteems below the hushes.
Bouseteems were stone compartments used for holding ore before it went through the next stages of dressing. Once you know that, some of the low walls and divided spaces around High Skears begin to look less like random ruins and more like parts of a working mine.
High Skears and Low Skears
It is easy to get the two Skears mines mixed up because both worked the same stretch of Hudeshope.
Low Skears lies closer to Middleton, while High Skears is further up the valley on the eastern side of Hudeshope, below the Skears Hushes. They were separate mines with their own workings, although the wider underground system became increasingly connected over time.
This is why old references to simply “Skears Mine” need a bit of care. The mine described as beginning in 1821 was the older Low Skears working, not High Skears.
High Skears appears separately in the nineteenth-century mineral returns. In 1855 it produced 36 tons of lead ore, yielding 25 tons 4 cwt of lead. By 1856, production had fallen sharply to 9 tons 18 cwt of ore, producing 7 tons of lead.
Those separate returns are a useful reminder that High Skears had its own story, rather than simply being another name for the workings lower down the valley.
The Backhouse Years
High Skears was worked by Backhouse & Co. from 1845 until 1862, and this seems to have been the mine's most productive period.
Figures linked to the mine suggest around 3,890 tons of lead concentrates were produced during those years. In 1863, the London Lead Company took over High Skears and continued working it until 1881.
By then, though, the mine was producing far less. Only a small amount of lead concentrate is recorded from the London Lead Company years, showing that High Skears had already passed its best by the time they took control.
What They Were Mining
The High Skears workings followed Graham's Vein, Walton's Vein and Skears Old Vein.
The main level, close to NY 9502 2825, was driven south-eastwards beneath the Great Limestone. Ore was found in the Great Limestone, while the old mine plan recorded no ore in the higher Upper Sills. Material still found on the dumps includes quartz, amber-coloured fluorite and iron-stained limestone.
That helps explain just how much broken rock surrounds the mine today. Miners were not simply removing lead ore; large amounts of waste had to come out with it before the useful mineral could be separated and prepared for smelting.
The Mine Shop and Dressing Floors
The substantial roofless walls are part of the surviving High Skears mine complex.
Below the hushes were the working areas where material coming from the mine could be stored, broken and washed. Remains here include the mine shop, washing floor and bouseteems, with other records identifying an ore store, crushing mill and wheel pit.
This is why the ruins spread so widely across the ground. Some walls belonged to buildings, while others formed part of the processing areas outside. It was a working yard as much as a collection of structures.
Enough survives to pick out the different parts of the site, but not every low wall can now be given a definite job. The larger picture is clearer: ore came out of the workings and was then stored, broken, washed and sorted here before leaving High Skears.
Water Power at High Skears
The surviving wheel pit is another clue to how much work took place above ground.
Water power was widely used across the North Pennine lead mines for machinery involved in crushing and dressing ore. At High Skears the wheel pit and crushing mill formed part of the surface processing site, alongside the washing floor.
That makes the mine much easier to understand when walking around it. The underground workings were only one half of the job. Once rock reached the surface, there was still a great deal of work to do before the valuable lead mineral was ready to leave the site.
Skears Hushes
The biggest feature at High Skears is the hillside itself.
Above the stone ruins, the Skears Hushes cut across the slope in a mass of channels, hollows and spoil. Hushing used controlled flows of water to scour away soil and loose material, helping expose veins and mineralised ground beneath.
Here the process was repeated enough times to leave a large area of the hillside visibly altered. The North Pennines Hudeshope guide describes numerous interweaving channels and spoil heaps across the slope, with the remains of High Skears sitting below them.
Standing amongst the ruins and looking uphill gives a much better impression of the scale of the place than the surviving buildings alone.
What You Can Still See Today
High Skears is rougher and more broken than Marlbeck farther up Hudeshope, but there is actually a lot left to see.
Tall sections of the mine buildings remain standing amongst low walls and stone foundations. Around them are spreads of waste stone and the remains of the dressing area, while the wheel pit, washing floor and other structures survive within the wider site. Above everything are the great scars of the hushes.
Some of the best views are from a little distance away, where the different pieces begin to sit together: buildings below, processing areas across the ground and the worked hillside rising behind them.
High Skears is a protected archaeological site, with old mine workings, uneven ground and unstable stonework throughout the area. There is no need to enter mine openings or climb on the ruins to explore it.
Carrying On to Marlbeck
High Skears does not have to be the end of the walk.
The same path continues further up Hudeshope towards Marlbeck Lead Mine, where the surviving mine shop and arched level entrance give you a very different look at Teesdale's mining past.
For this walk, though, High Skears makes a good turning point. It is close enough to Middleton for an easy half-day wander, but far enough up Hudeshope to feel as though you have properly left the village and walked into the old mining landscape.
The ruins can look confusing when you first arrive. Spend a little time there and the place starts to open up: the mine buildings, ore-dressing areas, wheel pit, spoil and the huge hushes above all belonged to the same working site. That is what makes High Skears worth the walk.