Allendale Flues

[Melvin Faust]

Not sure if this is better placed in rural sites. The North Pennines between the Tyne and Tees valleys are littered with remains of its lead mining past. One of the most impressive surface remains is the 2 mile long smelter flue system at Allendale, built to carry fumes from the smelter in Allendale village up to a pair of chimneys on the moor. This was not primarily to keep the highly toxic fumes away from the village but rather to allow lead in the fumes to condense. Every now and then some poor sod was sent along the flue to scrape the stuff off the wall!

Excuse the intrusive dates on the photos - the camera was new then and I hadn't figured out how to switch the date off

The flue near Allendale village

one of the chimneys is visible on the skyline

Further up the hillside

Access portal for scraping the flue

The chimneys

Although these photos are 4 years old the site should look pretty much unchanged as the flue is a listed building

 

[Foxylady]

That's really interesting...haven't heard of these before. Love the chimneys and the portal.
Nice find, Melvin.

 

[Lightbuoy]

An amazing area of Industrial Heritage. Good to hear that even with it's remote location, it's Listed. The length is unbelievable!

Thanks for posting Melvs,

Lb :jimlad:

 

[Urban-Warrior]

interesting.. an amazing feat of engineering never seen anything like it before.. thanks for sharing dude

 

[BigLoada]

Great photos there mate. I love driving past these. They also could obtain silver from the condensate. This area had the biggest and most productive silver-lead ore mine in the orefield at that time so it was quite viable building these and sending folk to scrape them. Have you walked any of the accessible bits of the flue?

 

[ThenewMendoza]

Theses are great, it looks like you can get inside them, is this right? I'd have been straight in there!!

M

 

[Melvin Faust]

Thanks for all your comments. I haven't walked inside it as it looks rather unstable now. I did read somewhere that when the flue was more intact Allendale children used to toboggan down it

 

[BigLoada]

Yes the sides are suffering from a lot of side pressure now. The stublick flue is in a bad way too. Good story about the kids sledging though!

 

[holymole]

I would comment but I think I've got the flu (e) sorry...........