Monument record MWX3069 - Alum works, Brownsea Island, Studland

Alum and Copperas mines and works, Brownsea Island. Mines were in use in 1586 and again in the seventeenth century. (2)

<1> National Trust, 1973, List of sites on National Trust land in Dorset (Unpublished document). SDO12976.

<2> Papworth, M, 1992, Brownsea Island, Dorset. Wessex region, 112, 085 (Unpublished document). SWX1390.

Documents describe and show the site of the alum and copperas mines on the south-west shore of Brownsea Island. The early 17th century map (DCRO photocopy 404) records “copperas mines now decayed” and the 1853 map (DCRO D263/T1) simply “copperas works”. The mines were in use in 1586 when James Mounsey of London who ran the mines was critisised by the corporation of Poole for encouraging the miners to work on the sabbath day (Legg 1986 p8). They were in use again in 1698-99 when Celia Fiennes described the manufacturing process in detail. “From thence by the boat we went to a little Isle called Brownsea 3 or 4 leagues off, where there is much copperas made, the stone being found about the Isle in the shore in great quantities, there is only one house which is the Governors, besides little fishermen houses, they all being taken up about the copperas workers; they gather stones and place them on ground raised like the beds in gardens, rows one above the other, and are all shelving so that the rain disolves the stones and it drains down into trench and pipes made to receive and convey it to the house; that is fitted with iron pans foursquare and of a pretty depth at least 12 yards over, they place iron spikes in the pans full of branches and so as the liquor boyles to a candy it hangs on those branches: I saw some taken up it look’t like a vast bunch of grapes, the colour of copperas not being much differing, it looks clear like sugar-candy, so when the water is boiled to a candy they take it out and replenish the pans with more liquor; I do not remember they added anything to it only the stones of copperas disolved by the rain as I mentioned at first; there are great furnaces under, that keep all the pans boiling; it was a large room or building with several of these large pans, they do add old iron and nails to the copperas stones.” (Legg, 1986 p.15) In 1857 Philip Brannon recorded that remains of the copperas industry were found when work was being carried out along the south shore. “Below on a piece of level land between the bank and the water were some kilns, which are now destroyed. Not far from this were discovered, in carrying on the works, some old cisterns formed on solid oak staves, which had been used in the former alum and copperas works”. (Legg, 1986 p8) The sales particulars of 1859 (DCRO photocopy 167 p13) record that an alum works was partly built before Colonel Waugh was made bankrupt but it is not known whether it was completed and brought into production. “There is also an erection comprising the four brick walls and 26 irons columns intended to carry the vitriol chambers for the chemical and alum works which were in the course of construction”. Visited 25/2/1992

<3> National Record of the Historic Environment (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Sep 11 2024 1:40PM