Add MS 74217

DERBYSHIRE LEAD MINES. 'A plan of the Shining Sough'. No date, but evidence of watermark suggests date in last third of 18th century. 'A scale of yards'. Scale bar of 160 [yards] = 51 mm. Scale circa 1:2880. Map oriented with north-east at the top. It shows veins of lead deposits and two soughs (water drainage channels dug to serve mineral workings), the 'Shining Sough' of the title, and a smaller channel, the 'Blithe Sough', both of which ran down into the valley of the Lathkill river, which is shown along the northern boundary of the map. The Bradford river is marked on the south-western boundary of the map along with the settlement of Youlgreave. The lead veins are carefully marked and labelled in ink although the details of their course has been greatly simplified for the sake of clarity. The map may have been intended to support proposals either to start or to continue work on the Shining Sough: a note on the right-hand side of the map begins 'From the White Vein [at the very centre of the map] to Blackshale Pitts Vein [at the foot of the map] is 934 yards which at one fathom pr week will be driven in nine years' and goes on to note the potential costs. For further details of lead-mining in general, and soughs in particular, see VCH Derbyshire, vol. II (1907), pp. 341-342, and J. Farey, General view of the agriculture and minerals of Derbyshire, vol. I (1811), pp. 328-331. Purchased from J. L. M. Gulley, March 1997.

Ink and watercolours on paper. 555 x 450 mm., on sheet 570 x 465 mm. Watermark of fleur-de-lys with J. Whatman name, similar to nos. 1846 A and 1849 in J. Heawood, Watermarks, (1950), indicating date between 1768 and 1781.