| June 2013 - I'm extremely pleased
to announce the release of a new book on which I have heavily
collaborated, written by Dr. Jim Rieuwerts, the leading British historian of
Derbyshire lead-mining, and which has recently received a citation in the
2013 Tratman Award given for excellence in underground
publishing.
Titled Adventurers in the Lead Trade
(ISBN: 978-0-9563473-5-0), and
commissioned by the Davie-Thornhill Estate of
Stanton Hall in Derbyshire,
the limited edition book details the history of the Thornhill
family's involvement in lead-mining between the 17th and 19th
centuries, and their enthusiastic investment of venture capital into pioneering
technical solutions for de-watering the orefield, and in many cases
producing huge returns on their investments.
They co-funded some of
the longest, deepest and most famous soughs in Derbyshire, and installed multiple Newcomen water-pumping
engines deep underground in the pursuit of more lead. Many of the
sites photographed in the book are rarely visited and/or poorly documented, and include
Oden Mine, Blue John Caverns/Waterhull Mine, Mandale Mine, Yatestoop
Sough and Drake Mine in Winster.
This luxury lead-grey
clothbound edition is full-colour throughout, 160
pages, 25cm X 21cm in size and
features a large number of underground photographs taken by myself
and produced especially for the book - I also designed the
dust-jacket image. The book has been designed and published by
Peter Miles
of Hucklow Publishing, and features rare original maps, charts and illustrations
from the Stanton Archive and Dr. Rieuwerts' private collection, additional photographs by Paul Deakin and vintage photographs of Millclose Mine
and its miners.
The book was produced in a
limited edition of 300 copies, and has now sadly sold out.
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