It might not surprise you to hear that Bridge of Allan is doing rather well at the moment. In stark contrast to the closed shopfronts of Stirling town centre, Henderson Street is replete of well-established and freshly opened small businesses offering long blacks, focaccia and embroidery. However, on a damp Sunday morning, I passed on these fine offerings for something more esoteric. I headed up Mine Road to the Well House, where volunteers had recently produced copper from ore mined in the underground tunnels of Bridge of Allan for the first time in two hundred and fifty years.
As part of Doors Open Days 2026, the Well House was open to the public and volunteers were running guided tours of the forest above, which for at least 150 years was mined for copper, and perhaps even further back to the era of the Romans and Neolithic peoples.
In spite of the name, the “well” was not originally dug in order to access water. It was built in order to access the copper deposits thirty-five metres down in the 1600s. But, when the mine closed in the early 1800s, Lord Abercromby, who lived in Airthrie Castle, decided to turn the water which ran through the old tunnels into a product and the well house cropped up in 1821. I use the word “turn” generously, for not much turning was involved save for putting the tunnel water into bottles.
The scheme was doubtless a success. People travelled from hundreds of miles away to purchase the water, known for its purgative qualities. According to a poster outside the well house, the local middle classes would “repair” to the salubrious (soon not to be) bathrooms of Bridge of Allan’s numerous hotels, while the poor would “repair” to the woods. Apparently, Victorians were huge fans of purgatives. One could call it a health craze, like protein or electrolytes. Although, the health benefits of the well’s mineral water were never categorically proven, it suffices to say.
The excellent volunteers led us up into Mine woods, past a cosy old miner’s cottage and up a steep climb to another mine shaft. The size of the shaft was impressive, considering the fact that miners only had manual tools. They would cave through the earth at a rate of about a foot per day using a sort of two-person drill. The front person would turn a long piece of wood while their partner hammered into the back of it. It was far from an easy life for these miners, and it involved the whole community.
Women were responsible for physically separating the copper sulphide ore from the less useful parts of the rock using a combination of tools and their hands. This material would be transported down the hillside on wooden sleds, before being smelted into copper in Alloa. Copper isn’t the only artefact the volunteers have found; wooden sleepers used in transporting the copper deposits were discovered and so were tools.
Back at the Well House, volunteer David lit a furnace, and the visitors consumed copious amounts of tea and chocolate bourbons, both made in machines reliant on their copper wiring, as if to prove how much the world has been changed in a relatively short space of time through faster and more efficient extraction methods.
It is easier not to think about the incredible human skill and knowledge which has led to us living the strange lives we lead in the 21st century but I think that we really ought to. I think that we are lucky not to have to live the harsh lives of Bridge of Allan’s copper miners but that doesn’t mean that all humans are today spared from the worst effects of copper mining.
I recently watched “Jon Snow: A last big story”; documenting the renowned journalist’s Alzheimer’s journey becomes a documentary about a disaster at a Zambian copper mine, as Snow decides, for a final time, to cover a scandal. Toxic substances leaked into a nearby river and rendered agricultural land unusable for decades, leaving local communities wondering how an earth they will feed themselves. It was a difficult watch, yet an important one if we are to contextualise the modern world. Our comfortable lives are not harmless, even if those harms aren’t visible. And the labour-intensive lives of Bridge of Allan’s miners are far from gone from the world. In fact, we rely upon them for many of the things we take for granted.
David explained how he would be extracting copper from the sulphide ores. At a temperature of 1200 degrees, the sulphur reacts with oxygen in the air to become sulfur dioxide, also leaving behind cuprous oxide. The cuprous oxide reacts with the granules of carbon David added to the furnace, leaving behind copper. In large scale copper mining, this crude copper can be 99% purified through electrolysis but the less-pure Bridge of Allan copper that David produced was clearly copper-orange. The heating process also produced bits of sharp glass from other bits of rock that were heated up. In spite of basically being dirt, these pieces were quite beautiful; they had an Obsidian-like quality.
Who would have thought that copper smelting could make such a pleasant display? The Well House volunteers continue to explore the abandoned tunnels and hope to discover tools and a route to the Allanwater river. There are currently no plans to bring back Abercromby’s miracle water, which is probably for the best.
A thank you to all the volunteers at Bridge of Allan Well House Restoration Project for the copper insight. Featured Image Credit: Frank Baker
