after a period of conflict, adopted the same pattern as the Gells at Griffe Grange, collecting the dues from mines run by Duchy of Lancaster rules. The operation of the old rules and customs in the Wirksworth Wapentake did not prevent the development of a complicated structure there. The barmasters' ore accounts, identifying mines and/or proprietors, reveal a mixture of free mining, ownership of large mines by rich entrepreneurs and the rewashing of old spoil heaps. Where there was a rich source of ore and especially where access required dewatering, the mines were owned by venture capitalists employing miners either as contracted groups, who considered themselves as free miners negotiating a price for their work or, more rarely, as wage labourers. The barmasters' accounts for 1653 show that the ore from the Brassington, Middleton and Wirksworth liberties, all low producers at the time, consisted of small amounts mined by a large number of names. Clearly, in these liberties, at this time, it was the small-time miners, most of whom would have had other sources of income, usually farming, who were paying their dues and selling to the lead merchants and smelters. In a fourth liberty, Cromford, the picture was different. With the Dovegang dewatered by Vermuyden's Sough (see below), the output there dwarfed the combined output of the other three liberties, and 51% of it came from mines owned by the rich lead merchant Lionel Tynley. 88% came from four sources, while the rest was mined by 45 independent miners. Finally, 6,108 loads (about 1,527 tons), or 23% of the total ore sold in the four liberties, was won from old hillocks by so-called "cavers". Pollution Lead is poisonous to both plants and animals. For people the smelting processes are the most dangerous – the restored smelter at Spitewinter, near Chesterfield, stands a few yards from Belland Lane, belland being lead poisoning. The current owners of the smelter on the site of the former Mill Close mine at Darley Bridge have bought much of the adjoining land and turned arable and pasture into woodland, to avoid the danger to crops and animals. The danger to plants and animals, particularly from washing or "buddling", has been known for centuries and the nuisance to the people of Brassington described above was typical of the conflict between farmers and miners. In the 1680s Sir John Gell II gave his opinion during such a