The Songs:
1. GETTING THE OLD GALENA: Describes the hopes and fears of the lead miners relating to the work they do.
2. LADY BEAUMONT’S BOAST:
The Beaumonts of Bretton Hall near Wakefield in Yorkshire owned lead mines in Weardale. One of the Ladies Beaumont is said to have remarked that a river of silver flowed all the way from Weardale through her dining room. Silver was sometimes found alongside lead in the mines.
3. ISAAC HOLDEN:
Isaac Holden was a lead miner who became a grocer who became known for retailing fine teas to the prosperous farming community. He would walk with his wears in a pack on his back and while selling his teas would raise money for charity. From the money raised he was able to install a clean water drinking fountain at Allenheads and provide a hearse and to contribute toward the educational needs of Weardale. He was an ardent Methodist and temperance campaigner. He was much loved and greatly mourned when he died at a relatively early age. Isaac’s ‘Tea Trails’ are still followed by hikers in Weardale. He is not to be confused with a baronet of the same name, a cousin, who was ‘Big in Bradford’.
4. BONNY HOUNDS OF WEARDALE: The lead miners loved to hunt the Hare on the fells and kept hounds in trencher packs. The hounds were kept by the miners and looked after at home but would be released and called by the Huntsman on hunting days blowing his horn at the cross roads. After a day’s hunting, the hounds would disperse, each one making its way to its respective cottage home to be fed.
5. THE BATTLE OF STANHOPE:
This story has been variously rendered into poetry and song, using ‘The Bonny Moorhen’ as a title’ a skit on a Scottish song of that name about Bonny Prince Charlie. This song is about an (lead miners and the Bishop of Durham, a land owner in Weardale, over the rights to take game.
6. THREE ‘P’s:
The lead miner’s tended to work 6 day weeks so they could tend their smallholdings from which they fed their families. The lead miners were, in effect, independent contractors, bargaining every 6 months with the mine owners for the right to mine. Often they made no money or, worse, ended up in debt to the mine owner. Consequently, they needed their smallholdings to sustain their families.
7. ALLENHEAD’S LULLABY:
Singing a child to sleep was sometimes the only quiet, private time a woman got. Singing to a child that as yet had no understanding of language was a time when the woman could express fears and hopes of which she could not speak at any other time; a time when she could release all those bottled up thoughts.
1. GETTING THE OLD GALENA: Describes the hopes and fears of the lead miners relating to the work they do.
2. LADY BEAUMONT’S BOAST:
The Beaumonts of Bretton Hall near Wakefield in Yorkshire owned lead mines in Weardale. One of the Ladies Beaumont is said to have remarked that a river of silver flowed all the way from Weardale through her dining room. Silver was sometimes found alongside lead in the mines.
3. ISAAC HOLDEN:
Isaac Holden was a lead miner who became a grocer who became known for retailing fine teas to the prosperous farming community. He would walk with his wears in a pack on his back and while selling his teas would raise money for charity. From the money raised he was able to install a clean water drinking fountain at Allenheads and provide a hearse and to contribute toward the educational needs of Weardale. He was an ardent Methodist and temperance campaigner. He was much loved and greatly mourned when he died at a relatively early age. Isaac’s ‘Tea Trails’ are still followed by hikers in Weardale. He is not to be confused with a baronet of the same name, a cousin, who was ‘Big in Bradford’.
4. BONNY HOUNDS OF WEARDALE: The lead miners loved to hunt the Hare on the fells and kept hounds in trencher packs. The hounds were kept by the miners and looked after at home but would be released and called by the Huntsman on hunting days blowing his horn at the cross roads. After a day’s hunting, the hounds would disperse, each one making its way to its respective cottage home to be fed.
5. THE BATTLE OF STANHOPE:
This story has been variously rendered into poetry and song, using ‘The Bonny Moorhen’ as a title’ a skit on a Scottish song of that name about Bonny Prince Charlie. This song is about an (lead miners and the Bishop of Durham, a land owner in Weardale, over the rights to take game.
6. THREE ‘P’s:
The lead miner’s tended to work 6 day weeks so they could tend their smallholdings from which they fed their families. The lead miners were, in effect, independent contractors, bargaining every 6 months with the mine owners for the right to mine. Often they made no money or, worse, ended up in debt to the mine owner. Consequently, they needed their smallholdings to sustain their families.
7. ALLENHEAD’S LULLABY:
Singing a child to sleep was sometimes the only quiet, private time a woman got. Singing to a child that as yet had no understanding of language was a time when the woman could express fears and hopes of which she could not speak at any other time; a time when she could release all those bottled up thoughts.