Heavy-lifter at Honister Slate Mine, Honister Pass, Cumbria

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The Honister Slate Mine (which is also known as the Slate Mine in Honister) in Cumbria is the last working slate mine in England. Quarrying for Westmorland green slate.

The first slate may have been extracted from the Honister Slate Mine during the Roman times.

Fragments (broken bits) of Honister slate have been found at the site of the Roman Bath House at Ravenglass and Hardknott Fort.

Much later, the monks of Furness Abbey (Barrow-in Furness) who owned land in Borrowdale are thought to have mined at Honister.

The early quarry men walked from Keswick to Honister. They started early on a Monday morning and lived rough on the mountains until the end of the week or even longer, working the slate by hand in all kinds of weather.

Miners even walked from as far away as Egremont and Whitehaven in West Cumberland to spend the week working at the Honister Slate Mine.

Stone huts called ‘bothies’ were built by the miners to live in. They were built from the slate from Fleetwith Pike and were only about 3 metres wide by 4 metres long. They had very thick walls to keep the wind and the rain out. They contained a fireplace so the miners at least had some warmth. The men would live in these bothies for up to two weeks, or for as long as their supply of food lasted.

The first real surviving evidence of ‘slate getting’ at Honister is from around 1643. The main areas where this took place is at the top of the Crag at Bull Gill and also Ash Gill, at a height of about 2000 feet (610 metres).

This is how the slate industry began at Honister. It was to be a way of life at Honister for many generations. Little was to change here for nearly three hundred years.