Gunnerside: Hidden Heritage

Last week I enjoyed a fabulous walk in the Swaledale area of the Yorkshire Dales.  The walk almost imperceptibly climbed out of the quant village of Gunnerside up the Gill of the same name.  Back in the 1800s this was lead mining country and boy could they mine back then.  Today we talk, debate and campaign against the raping of the Earth and its natural resources.  I doubt the miners of bygone days cared little about preserving resources.  Guess those were simpler albeit short sited times, but they didn’t have the luxury to be selective or the knowledge of their impact on the environment?
 

Gunnerside Gill: a picture of desolation

As you climb up Gunnerside Gill the scale of the mining operation and the scarring of the land become more apparent and almost unimaginable.  The land is barren and will not sustain vegetation for decades and centuries to come.   Despite the desolation caused by man the scale, location and contrast to its surroundings make Gunnerside a wholly beautiful place.  Faced with such an outlook I like to let my mind wander and spirit myself back to the days when the mining activity was at its height.  Blackened faced men trudging home after 12 hours of toil underground.  The noise of wagons being loaded to the brim and transporting lead down the valley, worn out picks on hard rock, even tortured screams from the many miners injured or killed in what compared to today must have been intolerable working conditions.

All this visual and mental stimulation got me thinking. At what point does an abandoned industrial landscape become a heritage asset?  40, 50 or a 100 years?

 

To my knowledge there are no modern industrial and scarred landscape that have been retained, protected and are cherished.  Old car plants have been demolished and been covered by little boxes we call home.  Quarries are turned into The Eden Project.  Power plants are decommissioned and turned into Forest Parks.  And many other such places are secured behind high barbed wire fencing and a plethora of “keep out” signs.

Above Gunnerside Gill

I have little doubt that if Gunnerside’s mine and spoil ridden landscape been abandoned in the last 20 years we’d be deafened from the cries to reinstate it back to its former glory with a massive programme of heather planting.  Perhaps Gunnerside is a beneficiary of its location?  It’s out of sight to those who live in the valley below, there are no roads up the Gill, and walking for leisure is a relatively recent activity.  As a result I suspect the mining area was forgotten, ignored and the elements moved in to do their work in carving out a ghostly image of days long past.

What I do like about Gunnerside in particular is the fact that it remains almost untouched by the modern approach to heritage and tourism management.  Yes, there’s one or two fading interpretative signs, footpaths criss-cross the area and the odd mineshaft is fenced off for safety reasons, but otherwise it appears untouched since the day those miners left for the last time.   It’s not unique.  There are other examples of an industrial landscape having been left to rot – so to speak.  The Cornish Alps and the Coppermine valleys above Coniston are two that spring to mind.  The latter is scattered with rusting vices, wagons from the mining railway, giant cogs and ruined buildings all with a mountain backdrop and overlooked by holiday cottages.

Starbucks of Gunnerside?

You’ll be thinking, places like the Black Country Living Museum and Beamish are major attractions but we all know these places have been given the Disney makeover.  As great a day-out they are it’s obviously the romantic side of a past industrial age.  Even places like Liverpool Maritime are surrounded by regeneration and modern glass and steel structures, providing an atmosphere lacking any true sense of what once was.  Just go to London Docklands on a wet grey day and the cold cuts to the bone, not just due to temperature but largely because the lack of any soul.

Coppermine Valley: A Future Mine Train Ride?

In a country often accused of being strangled by health and safety regulations I wonder how long it is before Gunnerside and Coppermines are fenced off.  Crumbling buildings pulled down before they fall down, all the “dangerous” contraptions taken away for scrap, mine shafts and levels sealed and gated.  Or worse still the Disney machine comes in and creates a mine train experience and converts peat drying rooms into coffee shops fitted out with plasma interpretation screens.  All of which leave little to the imagination.  Hopefully this never happens and the ghosts of miners who toiled exploiting the earth for future economic growth are left in peace forever disturbed only by walkers who make the effort to climb out of the valleys.