Shropshire’s Victorian mining story to be told

16 August 2010

`Once Upon a Hill` is a partnership project in which the mining communities who once lived on The Stiperstones are to be rediscovered thanks to the rebuilding of two of the cottages near Blakemoorgate, and the conservation of the natural and social history of the area. The project has been made possible thanks to funding of over £330,000 from The Heritage Lotttery Fund, LEADER in the Shropshire Hills (Project part financed by the European Agricultural Fund for European Development 2007-2013: Europe investing in rural areas), English Heritage and Natural England, as well support from the Upper Onny Guidebook Fund.

There has been settlement in the Stiperstones area of North Shropshire since prehistoric times and lead mining in the hills above Snailbeach, near Shrewsbury, since the Romans. In fact ‘pigs’ of lead have been discovered with ‘Hadrian’ inscribed on them.

The most recent active mining was in the late 1800s and it was around this time that small settlements began to spread up the hills and across the common land of the Stiperstones National Nature Reserve.

Small cottages were built by ‘squatters,’ who were allowed to stay if, it’s said, they could build a house and have smoke out of the chimney by nightfall. They paid a small rent to the estate and would walk for two hours or more, across the steep bleak hills to reach the mines, the church or the school.

Small whitewashed stone cottages and clearly marked cart tracks to the rows of dwellings were quickly in place as small communities developed. Each cottage was built to a similar design - a garden, rootstore and a byre for a cow or pig.

These remote and inhospitable settlements were inhabited as late as the 1950s and today there are still local residents whose families came from ‘up on the hill’.

Simon Cooter from Natural England, which manages the Stiperstones National Nature Reserve said:

“Restoring the cottages themselves will be fascinating, but the project is about much more than that.”

“We shall be finding out about the lives of the people who lived here, through collecting oral recollections, and we shall be conserving this precious natural environment, training volunteers to help with the restoration of stone banks around the settlements and holding community events and educational visits.”

Traditional building methods are being used to restore the cottages and work has just begun with a team from Conservation Building Services now on site.

It is hoped that the settlement at Blakemoorgate will be open to the general public by late Autumn.

-ends-

Notes for Editors

About Natural England

Natural England is the government’s independent adviser on the natural environment. Established in 2006 our work is focused on enhancing England’s wildlife and landscapes and maximising the benefits they bring to the public.

• We establish and care for England’s main wildlife and geological sites, ensuring that over 4,000 National Nature Reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest are looked after and improved.
• We work to ensure that England’s landscapes are effectively protected, designating England’s National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Marine Conservation Zones, and advising widely on their conservation.
• We run Environmental Stewardship and other green farming schemes that deliver over £400 million a year to farmers and landowners, enabling them to enhance the natural environment across two thirds of England’s farmland.
• We fund, manage, and provide scientific expertise for hundreds of conservation projects each year, improving the prospects for thousands of England’s species and habitats.
• We promote access to the wider countryside, helping establish National Trails and coastal trails and ensuring that the public can enjoy and benefit from them.

Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)

Using money raised through the National Lottery, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) sustains and transforms a wide range of heritage for present and future generations to take part in, learn from and enjoy. From museums, parks and historic places to archaeology, natural environment and cultural traditions, we invest in every part of our diverse heritage. HLF has supported 33,900 projects, allocating £4.4billion across the UK. Website: www.hlf.org.uk

English Heritage

English Heritage is the government’s statutory adviser on the historic environment.

LEADER

LEADER is a rural development funding programme operating throughout Europe, and in this country now forms part of the government's Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE). Following the successful provisional bid to Advantage West Midlands, the draft Local Development Strategy has now been completed and can be downloaded below.

The theme for the programme is improving the well-being of people in and around the Shropshire Hills by building on a sense of place and attachment to the landscape.

Well-being can be defined as "a contented state of being happy, healthy and prosperous" and recent work by the New Economics Foundation, defining the actions society can take to improve well-being, have been adopted as a framework for the delivery of LEADER in the Shropshire Hills:

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