Both villages lie within a valley dissecting the Lowther Hills in the Southern Uplands. At over 400 metres above sea level, Wanlockhead is the highest settlement in Scotland.

To complicate matters, Leadhills is in the county of Lanarkshire in Strathclyde Region, while neighbouring Wanlockhead is in Dumfriesshire and part of Dumfries & Galloway Region.

The villages maintained a friendly sort of rivalry during the mining era, though both formed the mining community.

At the peak period of extraction, Leadhills and Wanlockhead were at the cutting-edge of science and technology - rather hard to imagine looking around the area nowadays.

The study of the new, rare species being found there in the early 19th Century helped develop the fledgling sciences of mineralogy and crystallography. Ore extraction used the latest technological innovations of the period and helped their further development.

More recently, in the last 20 years, several more new mineral species have been described for the first time
from the deposit.

STRAITSTEPS MINE, Wanlockhead.
Mine shaft entrance and water-pump.

Along with the former miners' cottages (in the background), the complex forms part of the Wanlockhead Lead-Mining Museum. Open throughout the year, visitors are able to get an insight to the area's important and valuable past.

Mining Background

Mining from the 17th century onwards and peaking in the 19th century, the area finally succumbed to market forces
in the early 1950s.

Despite a long period of extraction before closure,
there are plenty of reserves of lead ore still buried below.

Both Leadhills and Wanlockhead mined lead ore, primarily, galena (lead sulphide). They also extracted smaller amounts of copper and zinc from chalcopyrite (copper) and sphalerite (zinc), which occur throughout the orebody, but are less common than galena.

Following the closure of the last mine in the 1950s,
there was a spell of some dereliction.

Nevertheless, the small communities are now in a period
of growth and development after the active mining era.

Forestry and sheep-rearing are important aspects of the present economy as is the Lead-Mining Museum.

GALENA - Leadhills, Lanarkshire.
Intergrown crystals to over 2cms.

Occuring in massive veins, galena was the main mineral
of interest to miners. Well-crystallized examples of the area's minerals are much sought after by collectors.

Minerals & Collecting

Many of the best specimens the mines are famous for,
were unearthed during the peak exploitation period
of the 19th century. These are now difficult to obtain
and, more often than not, reside in museum collections.

They include the secondary and type locality minerals derived from the main ores of lead, copper and zinc.

The scarcity is mainly a result of the upper oxidized zones not having been mined for over 130 years.
Dump material from this area was then extensively
dug over by the miners in the 1920s.

Collecting continues (permission is necessary)
but finds are small and limited.

One important find was at Wanlockhead, by a group of collectors in the late 1980s, of the rare, secondary copper-zinc species, veszelyite, which had hitherto
never been found at either locality or in Great Britain.

PYROMORPHITE
Straitsteps Mine, Wanlockhead.
Orange ball-like crystals 3mms. of this secondary-forming
lead mineral species.

CERUSSITE - Leadhills, Lanarkshire.
A secondary-forming, lead mineral.
"Jackstraw" habit crystals covering matrix. (spec: 43x32mms)

SPHALERITE
New Glencrieff Mine, Wanlockhead.
The main ore of zinc.
(intergrown crystal groups with minor quartz; spec: 150x100mms).

Mineralization occurs in Ordovician sediments. Faults structurally control, to a large degree, the mineralized veins which tend to decrease in ore grade to the north-west. These veins were mined to depths of over 425 metres (1,300 feet).

The age of mineralization was originally ascribed to
two periods - an early quartz vein mineral phase of Carboniferous age and a later metallic one of
lead and zinc of Hercynian age.

However, more recent studies with age-dating techniques, indicate all the mineralization took place within the Carboniferous era, around 350 million years ago
(Pattrick & Polkya).

The deposit underwent a secondary enrichment at a later stage, producing many of the rare species for which both localities are renowned.

The surrounding hills in the early days of mining yielded gold of considerable value. In fact, gold was the initial reason for mining in the area.

As the supply of gold dwindled, the localities turned their attentions to extracting the rich lead ores beneath them.

The source of the gold has not been precisely determined, but it occurs in small veins in the surrounding hills.

Gold from the deposit was used to make the Scottish crown in the early, gold extraction period and, more recently, in 1999, was used in the mace for the new Scottish Parliament.

Panning for gold is a popular activity of the Lead-Mining Museum and gold-panning contests often take place here.

Silver was also extracted from the primary lead ore,
galena, at Wanlockhead during the lead-mining period.

Leadhills & Wanlockhead
MINERAL PHOTO GALLERY - LOCAL LINKS

Over seventy mineral species have been recorded from the mines. The area is also the type locality for caledonite, chenite, lanarkite, leadhillite, macphersonite, mattheddleite, plattnerite, scotlandite and susannite.
All of these minerals are secondary lead species; are very rare and tend to occur as very small crystals.
(For a full list of the species recorded at the deposit, see link below).

Click on the text links to view the mineral gallery photos.