Surrender lead smelt mill, Swaledale, Yorkshire Dales. The 'front' of Surrender Mill. The flues are seen leaving the back of the smelter and starting their long trail across the moors. N.B. Narrative and pictures are as of the times when the pictures were originally added (mostly 1997 to 2004). In 2021, things may look different; conditions, tracks and rights of way may have changed. Click on the Home button for more explanation. How to get to Surrender Lead Smelt Mill. From Feetham or Helaugh in Swaledale, head for Langthwaite (northwards). From either road you will eventually see Surrender Mill on your right. The Surrender Lead Smelt Mill is sited by the same stretch of water as the Old Gang smelter, that is the Old gang Beck / Hard Level Gill. Both smelters can be visited easily during the same outing. If you are interested in seeing any of the old lead smelters, Surrender should be high on the list for a visit. In the picture above, one can see the twin horizontal flues going across the moor behind the mill. The first flues were about 500 metres long and after circling, terminated in a vertical chimney (now collapsed). I suspect that as fumes circled the site of the first chimney, any lead remaining in the smoke would be 'centrifuged' out, being thrown sideways to stick to the flue walls. The lead would be recovered when the flues got their periodic sweeping. The speed of the fumes would be governed by travelling the spiral orbit, reducing the possibilty of a furnace 's getting drawn out of control. The flue was later extended going higher up the dale to terminate in a then fresh chimney. The flue goes under the road which goes to Langthwaite. Though much of it has fallen in, the flue can be followed all the way to another chimney at the top of the dale. It is an interesting uphill walk, avoiding of course walking on the flue itself. Near the right side of the picture are the remains of a peat store. The peat was used to fire the smelter's hearths, though coal from pits at Tan Hill was also used. Look at the colours and contours in the picture below, by Barry Jones, then consider the quote taken from the text of Barry's accompanying e- mail, "....photos of Surrender, One of my favourites is of the Mill and Peat store. This really is set in a beautiful place, you can see now why more people visit Surrender Mill and get interested in lead mining of the Yorkshire Dales. Most of the people I have spoken to on my many, many visits there can not believe this was a smelt mill, they take it to be farm cottages long since abandoned." We understand that Surrender smelt mill pictured, was built around 1839/40 at the site of a previous smelter. Picture below: Seen on the edge of this picturesque valley are the ruins of Surrender Mill, left and its peat store, Below, in another picture by Barry Jones, is the peat store from a different angle. On a different day in a different season, in the picture below, by Rod, the vegetation and also the light are different. One can come to the Dales many times and be impressed by the changes the season, weather, time of day and light can make to the sceneand even changes of “mood” within minutes. Below, the egress of the twin flues seen from the outside, at the back of the mill. In the pictures below, flues can be seen leaving Surrender mill from inside the mill. West smelt room East smelt room. with ore chutes in the back wall. Below picture is of the room which once housed the bellows to blew the hearths. The bellows, as ever in the Dales, were driven by a waterwheel whose wheelpit can just be glimpsed in the bottom centre of this picture by Barry. The flue from the Surrender lead smelt mill is collapsed for much of its distance. It is still complete under the road to Langthwaite. A break in the flue before it goes under Langthwaite road is seen at right. In the final of the pictures here of Surrender, Barry caught the front of the mill beneath a sky of billowing clouds. There are grey slags (i.e. from an ore hearth) in the foreground. There is black slag tipped lower down the beck. Black slag proves the one time existence of a slag hearth for the further processing of slag from an ore hearth by reheating it in a slag hearth to wrest even more lead out of an otherwise waste product. Closure. Apparently output was low in the 1870s. The mill probably closed in 1880. Link to the page on the Swinnergill Smelt Mill >>>