Rookhope
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Rookhope is a former lead and fluorspar mining village in County Durham, in England. It first existed as a group of cattle farms in the 13th Century. It is situated in the Pennines to the north of Weardale. The village pub, the Rookhope Inn [1], is popular with cyclists on the coast to coast cycling route which runs from Sunderland on the east coast to Whitehaven on the west coast of northern England.
[edit] The Lintzgarth Arch
A local landmark is the Rookhope Arch at Lintzgarth, a few hundred yards west up the valley; one of the few remaining parts of the two mile (3 km) Rookhope Chimney. This "horizontal" chimney (parallel to the ground, which actually rises steeply to the moors) was used to carry poisonous flue gases from the Rookhope lead smelting works up onto the high moor. Periodically, lead and silver carried over in the gases and deposited in the chimney were dug out and recovered, rather than going to waste.
[edit] W.H.Auden
The poet W. H. Auden was familiar with this whole area of the North Pennines and its derelict lead mines, and stated in 'New Year Letter' that it was in Rookhope that he first became aware of himself as a poet:
In ROOKHOPE I was first aware
Of self and not-self, Death and Dread...
In this poem he refers to dropping a pebble down a mine-shaft on top of neighbouring Bolt's Law.
In the American Vogue of May 1954, Auden refers to Rookhope as 'the most wonderfully desolate of all the dales'.
'The Rookhope Ride' (Raid) is a ballad rescued and noted down by Joseph Ritson from the chanting of George Collingwood of Boltsburn near Rookhope c 1785. The date of the action is precise: 6 December [1569?], when robbers from Tynedale made a foray into Weardale.
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