Rookhope Arch (NY924429)

© Copyright Peter McDermott and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

A mile to the west of the remote village of Rookhope, Co.Durham, there lies an eye-catching relic of our industrial heritage in the form of a rugged stone archway. It sits quietly by the roadside and must leave the uninitiated passer-by somewhat nonplussed. It is known as the Rookhope Arch.

It is more accurately the Lintzgarth Arch, really, sited, as it is, a few yards away from the site of the former smelting mill complex of that name, a little above the Rookhope Burn. Lead being once mined hereabouts, smelting mills were scattered across the Northern Pennines to turn the lead ore into a purer form of the metal (bars, or ‘pigs’). One such mill was that at Lintzgarth.

Working with lead was a dangerous process, of course, and the fumes from the blast furnace needed to be funnelled away to a distant hilltop. At Lintzgarth this was done by constructing a six-arch, raised horizontal flue leading from the works and over the nearby Rookhope Burn and road, then a 1½ mile-long underground section to a hilltop chimney. In the picture above you can get an idea of the series of archways, the road/burn and the lower reaches of the underground tunnel.

The method of channelling the poisonous fumes out through a long chimney had the added bonus of allowing tiny fragments of lead (and silver) to stick to the inside of the structure – and these would of course be periodically scraped off for recycling by working boys. Nasty job – but, you know, waste not, want not.