The village of Greenhow, standing at 1300 feet above sea level, is one of the highest in England and was developed by Stephen Proctor in the early seventeenth century. The village is extremely exposed, and the fact that only a few houses have doors facing north and west speaks volumes for the climate. Scattered amongst the heather and bracken strewn moors are remnants of lost dwellings and hamlets where people once lived in this close-knit community. The history of the earliest settlement having been lost under centuries of waste from the local lead workings.

There is little evidence left of the earliest workers, but it may be that that the Brigantes were forced into slave labour by the Romans to mine lead, a useful metal that could be easily moulded into pipes or used to seal roofs.

The life of the ordinary people would have been hard in such as isolated place. The Black Death of 1349 probably killed much of Greenhow’s population.

Mining continued until 1881, and at its height, there was a school with 200 pupils.

The village currently consists of a ribbon of dwellings and the area, for me, always has a rather bleak but noble atmosphere.

The remnants of mining are situated on private land in the base of the valley. My thanks to John Blakey, the owner, for permission to photograph.