Editing Old Man of Coniston (section)

==Mining==
[[Coniston copper mines]] are reputed to be some of the largest copper mines in Britain, with a vertical distance of around {{convert|2000|ft|m|abbr=on}}. On the Coniston Old Man itself, slate replaced copper, and over several hundred years, the Old Man slate quarries and mines became some of the largest in England.  
 
The Old Man slate quarries were believed to have started in the 12th and 13th centuries, although there is little evidence on site of this. By the 1500s the quarries, working a kind of volcanic slate silver-grey in colour, were well established. The earliest major working shortly after this period was probably at Low Water Quarry, where opencast slate was prised from cuttings near the summit; Scald Kop Quarry, where a large cavern was formed from slate extraction on the surface; and the Saddlestone Quarry, again consisting of two 'caves' where slate had been quarried to form underground workings.<ref name="coniston-old-man.net">{{Cite web |url=http://www.coniston-old-man.net/ |title=Coniston Local History Group website |access-date=20 February 2022 |archive-date=17 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181117162430/http://www.coniston-old-man.net/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>