High Rake Mine 2025

Today you can still see the bases of the pumping engine house, winding engine house and chimney, along with remnants of the crushing and ore preparation processes. There are several interpretation panels to help explain what you can see, and you can also look down the huge shaft (safely capped with concrete). The is now a Scheduled Monument.

Contacts

Operator: Peak District Mines Historical Society

Address: Windmill Great Hucklow Derbyshire

Website: View website

Open Days & Times

Access at all times. Visit website for more details.

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High Rake is one of the major mineral veins of the area, and has been mined since at least the 13th century. By about 1750, miners had removed all the ore-rich deposits above the toadstone (a hard, volcanic rock), which was met at a depth of 276ft (84m).

In one of the Peak District’s most ambitious mining schemes ever, the High Rake Mining Company was formed in 1834, planning to use the latest pumping technology to drive a shaft through the layer of toadstone to what were thought to be large deposits of lead ore below. From 1834-6, an existing shaft from 1768 was made good down to the standing water, but then work stopped for several years.

In 1842-3, a massive Cornish-type two-cylinder 70/36-inch pumping engine was installed. This was made by Messrs Graham and Co. at the Milton Iron Works, Elsecar, and was the largest of its type ever made outside Cornwall. In 1846-7 a 20-inch cylinder winding engine, which also powered two sets of roller crushers, was also installed. This was housed in a two-storey engine house and was purchased from Magpie Mine near Sheldon.