From the road to the mine this sepia photo shows the layout of the mine. The nearest buildings are the smelter houses and assay office with the water wheel behind. Then the waste heaps, or byngs, with the schoolhouse just visible behind the centre of the largest one. Then come two rows of miner's cottage uphill from the schoolhouse with the magazine a very small white building in isolation behind them and finally Office Row behind the row of trees at the top. The mine manager's house, a smithy etc were among these buildings. Lead ceased to be mined in 1873 and by the 1890s the population of the community had shrunk to just sixteen. See Heritage Trail 3
Copy from Cathcart album used in exhibition. View taken from road leading into it. This was taken in the 1890s. As early as then the roofs of the smelters were damaged.
