Higher Pitts Mine, Priddy, Mendip, Somerset, England, UKi

Regional Level Types
Higher Pitts Mine	Mine (Abandoned)
Priddy	Civil Parish
Mendip	Group of Divisions
Somerset	County
England	Constituent Country
UK	Country

The Higher Pitts mine in Mendip Hills, Somerset, England, was a small mine that was sourced for iron and manganese in the 17th century. In 1890, the Somerset Manganese and Iron Ore Co. was formed to work the mine for commercial production of iron, manganese, lead, and copper but closed the mine in 1893 after meeting little success. Common minerals found in abundance at the mine are goethite, hematite, calcite, malachite and rhodochrosite. The last vestiges of mining have been removed from the site in 1992.

Until the much larger deposits of mendipite were discovered at Merehead quarry, the Higher Pitts mine at Priddy was the main source of specimens of this mineral in the Mendip Hills. The mine is the type locality for the minerals chloroxiphite and diaboleite, and has also produced some of the largest known crystals of hydrocerussite and crednerite. Recently, plattnerite and kentrolite have been identified in old specimens from the locality.

The Higher Pitts mine is situated near to the village of Priddy in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England, 25 km south of the city of Bristol and 4 km north of the city of Wells. It is a picturesque spot at the edge of the steep southern escarpment of the Mendip Hills plateau, with wide views out across the Somerset Levels (alluvial plains) some 240 meters below. The shallow, dry valley in which the mine workings are located leads via Dursdon Wood to Ebbor Gorge, which cuts through the escarpment and descends to the famous Wookey Hole cave at its base. The gorge was presented to the National Trust in 1967 by Mrs. G. W. Hodgkinson, and is now a national nature reserve, but this does not include the Higher Pitts mine workings.

The area surrounding the Higher Pitts mine has long been used for sheep and cattle grazing, and there was an estate there in Saxon times called "Aebbewyrth" [Saxon = Aebbe's farmstead], which has given its name to Ebbor ("Ebber" in older documents) Gorge.

Lead mining was carried out in the immediate vicinity of the Higher Pitts mine from very early times. This activity peaked during the 17th century, but mining may have taken place during Roman times, or perhaps even earlier; there is a prominent Bronze Age tumulus (burial mound) situated directly between two of the largest lead veins in the region, approximately 1 km to the east of the Higher Pitts mine. Mining for lead continued on an ever decreasing scale throughout the 18th century, but had died out by the middle of the 19th century.

Indications of iron mining in the area date from 1752 when the shallow, dry valley at Dursdon Wood was known as "Iron Pits Bottom" (Gough, 1930).