The roofless ruins of a Victorian lead-smelting mill in a bare side valley of Swaledale, with a lone chimney and a long peat store on the slope above
Swaledale was one of England’s busiest lead-mining dales in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Old Gang Smelt Mill is where ore from the mines on the moor was melted down. The mill you see dates from around 1846, built over an older one, and it worked until the price of lead collapsed, stopping by the early 1900s. A tall square chimney still stands, and the remains of a flue climb the hillside, built to carry the fumes away from the mill. On the slope behind is the peat store, about 119 metres long: a roofless row of stone pillars that once sheltered the peat used as fuel. The mill and the peat store are both Grade II listed and part of a scheduled monument.
The usual way in is up the stony track beside Old Gang Beck from Surrender Bridge, on the moor road between Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, about a kilometre on foot. Reeth is the nearest village with shops and pubs. The Coast to Coast walk comes through here on its high-level route between Keld and Reeth. The mill buildings are unstable, so look from outside rather than climbing in.
