Arches at Dukesfield Smeltmill, Slaley. Photo by Northumberland County Council.

Old smelting mill 200m south west of Dukesfield Mill bridge. Grade II listed building. Remains of lead smelting mill, late 18th century. All that remains of the Dukesfield Smelting Mill. (1)

The ore came from Beaumont's lead mines in Allendale and contained a considerable proportion of silver. (2)

The remains comprise two stone arches which may have carried the flues from the furnace. (3)

The lead smelting mill was demolished c.1836. (4)

The site was active from the 18th century to the 1830s. The site is afforested with no identifiable features other than the flue arches. The arches are probably the only architecturally designed example known. (5)

The last remains of the smelt mill are the arches. The site is a rarer survival of North Pennine smelt mills. Banks and traces of masonry remain in this area which are the footings of the smelt mill, and later saw mills, that occupied the site. Features of the smelt mill can be seen across the area, though now overgrown. An 1821 inventory of the site for the William Blacklett lead company records a pair of roasting furnaces, five ore hearths, two slag hearths, two refining furnaces and 1 reducing furnace. Other documentation of 1802 shows at least tow large buildings fed by mill races. No long horizontal flues appear to have been created here as opposed to other smelt mills in the North Pennines (such as at Rookhope, Langley and Catton).
Further work investigating the smelt mill and the related sites in the vicinity is planned. (6)

The Dukesfield smelt mill was operated as a Blackett, later Beaumont Blackett, concern. This was the largest of their concerns (mainly based around Allendale). The mill was built prior to 1728 and the largest of the mills operated by the family. This received ore from all the Blackett mines with an average annual output from 2000 bings in the 1720s to 8000 bings in the 1780s.
The smelt mill is number 16 of Raistrick's listing of smelt mills in the 17th and 18th centuries in the north Pennines. In 1820 the smelt mill was composed of five ore hearths, two roasting furnaces, two refining furnaces, one reducing furnace and two slag hearths. (7)

Dukesfield Mill is one of a cluster of at least five lead smelt mills currently known in Hexhamshire dating from the mid to late 17th century. The heyday of the mill was in the early 19th century, around 1802, when it was processing 3000 tons of lead ore annually. A series of five trial trenches excavated in 2012 revealed:
Trench 1: a rubble deposit of stone and brick fragments, probably from the collapsed north end of the current standing arches. This presumably formed part of the support carrying a flue(s) from the smelt mill to the chimneys. Remains of a buried wall suggests the remains of a substantial building, possibly belonging to an earlier phase of activity on the site.
Trench 2: the top of the culvert roof and its eastern entrance into the Hall Burn.
Trench 3: part of the course of the mill leat and suggested possible locations of the sluice gates; the greater part of the leat channel and part of its sides were formed from fused hearthstones, presumably derived from the smelt mills. The presence of launders controlled by sluice gates was suggested in two locations by worked stones and features within the channel bed. A ramp-like feture on the south side of the leat suggests a supplementary water channel.
Trench 4: remains of a substantial stone-built structure identified as a refinery (built as an additon to the smelt works in about 1765). Analysis of slag in secondary contexts has been identified as originating from ironworking, specifically a water-powered bloomery and/or a finery forge.
Trench 5: a stack of four separate chimneys within a walled enclosure, south-east of the arches.
The excavations has clarfified the arrangment of buildings and basic organisation of activities on the site in the later 18th and early 19th century phase. Less clear is the layout prior to the 1760s and when industrialisation of the site occurred and whether it was in more than one phase from possible beginnings in the mid-16th or second half of the 17th centuries. (8)

Smelting mill at NY 941 580. Stands on the Devil's Water which flows into the River Tyne. A fine arched water way survives. A leat is also visible. (9)

Old smelting mill. (10a)

Excavation of three areas in 2014 (phase 3) revealed a wheelpit and structures associated with bellows in the smelting hearths area (Area A). A wooden-shuttered enclosure or channel and probable supports for launder structures and spillways were found in Area B. Probable flood management structures and storage/administration buildings were found in Area C. (11)