The mystery of Buckden Bill - Vetch · The mystery of Buckden Bill Sebastian Oake Dales, the end...

On a snowy March day in 1964 a partyof students from Birmingham

University set off to explore the old leadmines high above the village of Buckden.What they were to find that day wouldkeep people guessing for decades after. It’sbeen one of the great mysteries of UpperWharfedale, puzzling and intriguing localpeople and visitors alike but now someanswers could be at hand. While exploring the extensive passages

of Buckden Gavel Mine, the studentsfound the body of a man. They quicklyreturned to the entrance of the mine andcalled the police, who initially declared amurder investigation. Members of theUpper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Associationwere scrambled.Roger Nichols, one of the fell rescue

team sent to retrieve the body, remembersthe day well. He found it around 400 yardsinto the mine in a little-explored passagereached using three shafts, each up to 60feet (18 m) high.He recalls: “All that remained was a

dark-stained skeleton clothed in studdedleather boots with hook-type fastening,trousers, shirt, waistcoat and a fine felt hat.The body seemed to be in a relaxed posewith hands folded across the chest and thelegs in a natural position.”Clearly, the gentleman had been there a

long, long time. This was no contemporarycrime scene for the police to investigatebut a fascinating relic from the past. Thecontents of the man’s pockets added to the

interest – an old-fashioned clay pipe, atobacco tin, a box of three-inch (7.5 cm)long Crown Vesta matches, a medicinebottle containing a colourless fluid, a silversixpence dated 1872, two shilling piecesdated 1885 and a funeral card for a JohnWinskill, who is thought to have beenburied at Settle in May 1890. A walkingstick completed the scene. These objects helped to place the man’s

death in the early 1890s but he was neveridentified. Presumably he entered themines on his own – but why? The mineshad effectively closed more than ten yearspreviously. It seemed he died of naturalcauses, perhaps a heart attack, but nothingmore could be said. In the absence of anyreal clues to the man’s identity, he wasdubbed Buckden Bill. The mystery of Buckden Bill has

endured. During the years that followed,the lead mines have retreated further intohistory but we have also come tounderstand more about the industry andhow it took over the quiet fells of the Dalesand swelled the population of the villages.At Buckden, lead was mined at Buckden

Gavel on the western flank of BuckdenPike at least as far back as the seventeenthcentury. Early mining took place via shaftssunk above Cray but in 1804 work beganon a horizontal tunnel high up in BuckdenGhyll. The entrance can still be seen today.In the 1860s the mine, run by Charles Lodgeand Co, was producing significant amountsof lead but, as with the other mines in the

The mystery of Buckden BillSebastian Oake

Dales, the end was not far away. In the1870s world lead prices were driven downby competition from new sources and theDales lead industry, with its by nowoverworked veins, could not survive. By1877 production at Buckden Gavel Minehad probably more or less ceased. At the time there must have been mixed

feelings. Lead mining provided a living butit was hard, miserable and dangerous. Afterthe mines closed, the men who had toiledin them drifted away to the cities, the minebuildings and smelt mills started to crumbleand the fells reclaimed their solitude.

Above, looking out from inside BuckdenGavel Mine; right, Buckden Bill’s felt hat(pictured here with Roger Nichols) was

found with the skeleton.

28 the yorkshire dalesman january 2012 29

Shortly after ‘Bill’ was discovered, theUpper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Associationexplored the workings more fully and foundthem to be just as the last shift of miners hadleft them, more than eighty years before.The mines were extensive and on threelevels. Clog marks could be seen in the mudon the floor of the mine. Even impressionsof the miners’ corduroy trousers were

visible on the muddy side walls. Elsewhere,initials and dates were carved intostonework. There were also the stumps oftallow candles, stuck to the walls in claycups, along with a broken clay pipe laid ona shelf. It was almost a complete museumbut one that could not answer the biggestquestion of all – who was Buckden Bill?Now, half a century later, the jigsaw is

coming together. Nothing is absolutelycertain but the picture that is emergingcould well be the right one. Mike Gill, recorder for the Northern

Mine Research Society, says: “It is nowbelieved that ‘Bill’ may well have been aman called John Sunter Place. He was froma mining family in Upper Wharfedale buthad been living in Burnley. He also appears

to have disappeared at the right time.”John Sunter Place was born in Low Row

in Swaledale in 1844. In 1861 he was livingwith his father and mother, John and JanePlace, at Kearton near Feetham in the dale.Aged sixteen, he was the eldest of sevenchildren and, like his father, was workingas a lead miner.The census of 1871 reveals that the

family had by then moved to Kettlewell inWharfedale. It is thought that John SunterPlace married Kettlewell girl Mary AnnWiseman in 1868 and the couple now hadtwo young children. John was still a leadminer. He and Mary Ann were living sideby side with John’s parents in the village –his father had secured the key position ofagent in the local mines, probably theprofitable Old Providence Mine inDowber Gill, east of Kettlewell. As the lead industry fell into difficulties

in the 1870s, however, work in the minesbecame harder to find. By 1881 John andMary Ann had left the Dales and moved toBurnley. At some stage his mother andfather moved to Manningham in Bradford.What happened in 1890 is key to solving

the mystery. By the following year JohnSunter Place appears to have gone missing,yet no record of his death has ever beenfound. In April 1891 Mary Ann, his wife, was

still living in Burnley. Although listed in thecensus as married, she was now describedas head of household and had gone out towork herself. She was a cotton weaver, aswere five of her six children, includingThomasine, aged only twelve. Staying withthem was Hannah Place, probably JohnSunter Place’s sister, perhaps to help with

Left, Buckden Pike, once a thriving mining area.

30 the yorkshire dalesman january 2012 31

the aftermath of the disappearance.So where did John Sunter Place go? Two

things happened in the summer of 1890that might hold clues. In May hepresumably attended the funeral of JohnWinskill in Settle. There is a suggestionthat they were both members of theRechabite Society, a movement promotingtemperance. Mike Gill remembers thatwhen the funeral card was found, it wasremarkably undamaged in John SunterPlace’s pocket. He reasons that had it beenin his pocket for any length of time whilehe was going about his normal daily life, itwould have been at the least creased ordog-eared.And just weeks after the death of John

Winskill, John Sunter Place’s own fatherdied in Bradford.Did either event prompt a time of

reflection for our John? Did he decide toreturn to Wharfedale during the summerof 1890 to explore the mines that gave himwork, that shaped his life but thatultimately let him down? And what wasthe connection with Buckden Gavel Mine? Mike Gill says: “If he’d just gone in the

mine casually it doesn’t seem likely he wouldhave got to where he did. He was found inan area of the later workings and it wouldhave been a difficult journey to get there. Itlooks as though he was familiar with themine and that he might have had somethought in mind when he went in, perhapsto visit part of it where he had worked.”When he was a miner, John had lived in

Kettlewell, of course, and the mine at

Buckden would have been a four-mile (6.5km) uphill walk away. Mike says: “Thatwas nothing in those days. It would havetaken him less time to get to work thanmany people today.”Intriguingly, a map of the mine reveals

names like Sunter North Level andWiseman’s West Level. Levels were oftennamed after the men who worked them.Although Sunter was probably a commonfamily name, could Mary Ann’s familyhave given their name to parts of the mine? As to what took place in the mine on

that day in 1890, it is impossible to beprecise. The climb up to the entrancewould have been strenuous enough butinside, the route to where John was foundwould have involved hard climbs. He wasforty-six, actually quite old in lead miningyears. The heart attack theory begins toappear possible.As for Mary Ann, she seems to have died

in 1919 and is said to be buried inKettlewell churchyard, finally back in thevillage where she was born. Whether sheever had any inkling of what might havebeen her husband’s fate we will probablynever know but in making that final returnjourney up into the Dales, she moved notonly back close to her roots but also, itseems, to her late husband. n

You can see some of Buckden Bill’sbelongings at the Yorkshire Dales MiningMuseum in Earby, near Skipton. BuckdenGavel Mine itself is now in a very dangerousstate and should not be entered.

32 the yorkshire dalesman

not much of an early bird

Overheard on a Bradford bus late one night, as two drinking friends parted: “Ah’ll see theeSunda’ mornin’ then, Fred.” “Sunda’ mornin’?” exclaimed Fred, “Ah nivver knew they ’ad em!” Leonard T Butterfield