Campaigners have a month to save landmark mining equipment in Weardale

The Friends of Groverake Mine have just under a month to come up with a formal plan to preserve the Weardale mine’s iconic headgear, which is the last of its kind in the North Pennines orefield.

It follows months of concern about the site near Rookhope, which was badly damaged by fire last November.

Sherburn Stone, which owns the mine, is happy to donate the remaining structures to a preservation group, but with its lease on the land now at an end it is duty bound to leave the site and remove all modern structures.

Durham County Council applied for listed building status in 2013 but the bid was turned down. Campaigners have been exploring ways to save the headgear ever since and say recent negotiation have taken a positive turn.

Dr Andy Hopkirk, of Friends of Groverake Mine, said: “We understand the landowner is willing to consider a formal plan to keep the headgear in place. That’s good news but it seems we’ve only got a month to pull it together so we’re getting started right away.”

Paul Allison, of Sherburn Stone, added: “The headgear has great cultural significance and we support all efforts to preserve it in situ. We would gladly donate the headgear to a credible preservation group, but we are very mindful of our obligations to our landlord and to the local authority and all stakeholders would have to agree a way forward.”

Mining started at Groverake in the early 1800s and major operations were developed by the Beaumont Company in the 1810s. It started producing fluorspar under the ownership of Weardale Lead Company and after the Second World War was one of the leading producers of the mineral.

When it closed in 1999 it was thought to have been the last fluorspar mine operating in England and the last deep mineral mine in County Durham.

Many people, such as mining enthusiast Jean Thornley, from Darlington, regard its headgear as a “fixed symbol of a vanished industry” and a “beacon of the dale.”