Monument record 1440/0/0 - Alderley Edge Mines

Alderley Edge.Copper & lead mining area,poss worked from prehistoric period,in Nether Alderley,Over Alderley & Alderley Edge.Numerous old shafts drifts & levels in area,incl open workings.Dating of the mining activities is difficult & finds have been dated from the Mesolithic period.The large nos of hammers with a central groove are said to suggest a Bronze Age date for open workings (1)&(2).Warrington considers there is no evidence for Bronze Age date as these implements are not assoc with any independently dated material. They cld be assoc with post med & modern mining activities (3).Large nos of poss mining tools have been found,incl 3 stone mauls & a grinding stone now in Ashmolean Museum,large hammer,heavy pebble,stone pick & hammer,now in Pitt Rivers Collection.Also specimens of copper & lead ore, cobalt & a small block of heavy maroon coloured rock from the mines, now in Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.2 flint scrapers & 3 hammer stones now in Liverpool Museum (4).

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1870-1982, Ordnance Survey Archaeological Record Card, SJ87NE2.1/1964 (Index). SCH2487.

<2> Various, Current Archaeology, 99/1986/106-109 Craddock P (Y) (Journal/Periodical). SCH1031.

<3> Lancashire & Cheshire Antiquarian Society, 1883 -, Transactions of the Lancashire & Cheshire Antiquarian Society, 64/47-73 Warrington G 1981 (Journal/Periodical). SCH3293.

<4> Cheshire County Council, 1974, County Treasures Record, 5/A.265-276 (Index). SCH1000.

<5> Findlow A J, 1988, A Descriptive Account of the Area known as: Alderley Edge (Book). SCH61.

<6> Timberlake, S. and Prag, A.J.N.W., 2005, The Archaeology of Alderley Edge (Book). SCH4769.