ABSTRACT
The economic mineral deposits of the Mendip Hills are confined mainly to the central area and flanks of the Blackdown, North Hill and Pen Hill periclines. The main ore is galena, lead sulphide, which occurs in thin veins or lodes. The vicinity of the Blackmoor at Charterhouse has been mined intermittently, probably from pre-Roman times, up to the 19th century. Nineteenth-century working also intruded into this area, leaving the shafts and spoil identified on the Plan of the Rakes, and also the round platform and central stone pivot of a nineteenth-century horse whim presumed to have worked the New Shaft at site 4. Somerset County Council have laid out a guided walk with posts and interpretation boards to the Blackmoor, Velvet Bottom and Charterhouse Valley areas. There is a public footpath to the rakes with a stile giving direct access to the adjoining Blackmoor Valley.
