T11d - North Pennine Hushes: myth versus reality

Date : 20/06/2026    Time : 11:30 - 12:20Brian Young

Location :  NGR SE 04616 98433

Details : 

The voluminous literature covering centuries of Northern Pennine lead mining contains countless references to the practice of ‘hushing’. In simple terms this form of hydraulic mining is generally assumed to have involved the gathering of large volumes of water in specially built reservoirs behind ‘hushing dams’, and its repeated sudden release as powerful erosive torrents intended to expose orebodies, creating the conspicuous gullies known as hushes. It has long been supposed that this was a technique widely employed across the Pennines and elsewhere, both as a means of prospecting for, and the working of, orebodies.

The hushing concept is firmly, but uncritically, embedded in the annals of mining history, together with some curiously elaborate classifications of different types of hush. However, recent detailed geological and geomorphological research has revealed irrefutable evidence that the area’s largest and most conspicuous of these hushes are of entirely natural origin, created by powerful natural erosive torrents of water many millennia before any human occupation. As channels excavated by volumes of glacial meltwater far greater than anything capable of being supplied from a hushing reservoir, somewhat paradoxically, they may reasonably be interpreted as hushes, but they are hushes of wholly natural and pre-human origin. Whereas these findings do not destroy the concept of hushing within mineral working they do indicate the need for a careful evidence-based and realistic approach to the true nature of hushing.

A native on NE England, and graduate of Queen Mary College, University of London, Brians early fascination with local rocks and minerals developed into a long research career with the British Geological Survey (BGS). After starting work investigating the tin deposits of S Thailand, he spent a number of years researching the ‘soft’ rocks of SE England before returning to NE England as a founder member of the BGS Newcastle Office, of which he became Head. He has worked on many aspects of N England geology, though with particular emphasis on the mineral deposits of the Northern Pennines and Lake District. He was privileged to work with the late Sir Kingsley Dunham on the revision of the classic BGS Memoir The geology of the Northern Pennine Orefield Volume 1.

His work on Northern Pennine mineralisation was recognised in 1993 with the naming of brianyoungite, a new mineral discovered in the workings of Brownley Hill Mine, Nenthead, and subsequently reported from numerous other worldwide locations. Since retiring as the BGS District Geologist for Northern England he continues his research as an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Durham. His list of over 200 publications includes scientific papers, books and popular articles. He is especially keen to share his interest and enthusiasm for geology and landscape with a wider public and is a frequent lecturer and leader of excursions.