Saddle House

Standing solitary by a sun-slicked copse is this small stone ramshackle ruin.

It's easy to drive by and not acknowledge, but there's usually something of interest in most stuff. Looking for early autumn fungus or eyes to the skies for late summer butterflies, this threshold of time and change in elevation in Teesdale is Eggleston, where the gentle stretches of countryside quintessence give way to the wilder and more rugged, remote reaches of the upper dales.

This bantam building is a nod to its industrial past. It's known as The Old Saddle House.

You can't go far in Teesdale without noticing the hushes, levels and grooves in the land. These are the scars remaining from the London Lead Company, which mined these moors for lead ore from 1753.

In 1771 there was an expansion to Eggleston where a smelting mill was built, and the ponies would carry lead ore to the smelting mill at Blackton.

They were stocky beasts, known as Jagger Galloways, designed to carry heavy loads over long distances. The lead ore would be carried in long panniers on either side of a wooden saddle, which would be an equal weight to the horse carrying a man.

It would've been a long slog, often in extreme weather conditions, with lots of incline and decline, treacherous underfoot and hard on the joints of humans and horses.

The job was a grind, hard going and heavy work. There were twenty horses to a train, always accompanied by a man and boy and a dog known as a heeler, whose job it was to keep them in constant motion. The horses wore muzzles all day, making it impossible for them to stop and graze.

This image from the Science and Society Picture Library paints the scene.

Built in the 18th century, this is the only surviving saddle house in the North East.

It's idyllic and inviting, with its tight coat of moss hugging the solid stone slates. It's small and solitary and would've housed a fire to promote warm hands for the stable hands to aid the quick changeover of saddles or to make repairs.

In essence, this was a spartan space for stitching and cleaning leather panniers. The walls, though small would have been racked with saddles, bridles, baskets and panniers. Torn straps, worn leather and broken buckles would all have been mended in this tiny workshop while the horses rested before their steep descent down to the Eggleston Burn.

Look at the dry stone wall that surrounds it. Now cloaked with ferns and moss, this would once have been a sturdy enclosure to enable the horses to rest and recuperate after their long journey, to snatch some grass before the long haul up to Blackton Smelting Mill, an arduous climb with weight on their backs.

Today it's swallowed up as an outbuilding, packed to the gunnels with wood for the fire.

No sign of the horses that were herded here in all weathers, then slunk down the steep wooded slope to carry their load over the ford.

Over time, the moorland and woodland tracks used by the Jaggers carrying their weighty loads were upgraded by the Quaker-based London Lead Company. As conditions improved for miners, they did too for the horses and stone slabs were laid to take carts, carrying more and taking less time to transport. The track over the ford used for years by the horses was defunct and replaced by the Blackton Viaduct in 1860, and with the influx of the railways, coal was carted directly to the station in Romaldkirk and the saddle house was no longer needed.

It sits snug in the landscape as a little reminder of the hectic harrying of horses over the tough terrain, held in the clutches of green moss and memories; a little reminder of the hustle and bustle of the lead ore industry in Teesdale.