Sough
Encyclopedia
A sough is an underground channel for draining water out of a mine. Its ability to drain a mine depends on the bottom of the mine being higher than a neighbouring valley. If the mine sump is lower, water must be pumped up to the sough.
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Early Derbyshire lead mines were fairly shallow, since methods to remove water were inefficient and miners had to stop when they reached the water table. The digging of soughs was found to be an effective way of lowering the water table and allowing mines to be worked deeper.
Soughs were typically dug from their open end near a stream or river back into the hillside beneath the mine to be drained. One sough would often drain more than one mine, since these were often very close, working the same vein of lead. This also helped spread the cost of digging the sough. Some soughs include branches to facilitate further drainage.
Many soughs were dug throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, until the falling price of lead brought the decline of the Derbyshire lead mining industry towards the end of the 19th century.
Some soughs were very extensive. Meerbrook sough is over four miles in length. Digging such long tunnels took a long time. Vermuyden sough, named after the Dutch engineer Sir Cornelius Vermuyden who planned it, took twenty years to dig. The Cromford sough that Sir Richard Arkwright subsequently used to power his mill at Cromford
took thirty years to dig, and was still being extended a century after it was begun.
Some soughs are still in use. According to the British Geological Survey
, the Meerbrook sough, started in 1772, still provides 3.75 million litres a day for the public water supply.
industry until the mines became too deep to be drained by this means. With the advent of the steam engine
, soughs became less necessary for unwatering mines than they had previously.
Derbyshire lead mining
The term is closely associated with the lead mining areas of Derbyshire (see Derbyshire lead mining historyDerbyshire lead mining history
This article details some of the history of lead mining in Derbyshire, England.- Background :On one of the walls in Wirksworth church is a crude stone carving, found nearby at Bonsall and placed in the church in the 1870s. Probably executed in Anglo-Saxon times, it shows a man carrying a kibble or...
).
Early Derbyshire lead mines were fairly shallow, since methods to remove water were inefficient and miners had to stop when they reached the water table. The digging of soughs was found to be an effective way of lowering the water table and allowing mines to be worked deeper.
Soughs were typically dug from their open end near a stream or river back into the hillside beneath the mine to be drained. One sough would often drain more than one mine, since these were often very close, working the same vein of lead. This also helped spread the cost of digging the sough. Some soughs include branches to facilitate further drainage.
Many soughs were dug throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, until the falling price of lead brought the decline of the Derbyshire lead mining industry towards the end of the 19th century.
Some soughs were very extensive. Meerbrook sough is over four miles in length. Digging such long tunnels took a long time. Vermuyden sough, named after the Dutch engineer Sir Cornelius Vermuyden who planned it, took twenty years to dig. The Cromford sough that Sir Richard Arkwright subsequently used to power his mill at Cromford
Cromford
Cromford is a village, two miles to the south of Matlock in the Derbyshire Dales district in Derbyshire, England. It is principally known for its historical connection with Richard Arkwright, and the Cromford Mill which he built here in 1771...
took thirty years to dig, and was still being extended a century after it was begun.
Some soughs are still in use. According to the British Geological Survey
British Geological Survey
The British Geological Survey is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. The BGS headquarters are in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, but other centres...
, the Meerbrook sough, started in 1772, still provides 3.75 million litres a day for the public water supply.
Elsewhere
Soughs were also extensively used in the coal miningCoal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
industry until the mines became too deep to be drained by this means. With the advent of the steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
, soughs became less necessary for unwatering mines than they had previously.
External links
Further reading
- Rieuwerts, J. H. History and gazetteer of the lead mine soughs of Derbyshire. Author, 1987