Galena (lead ore), in quartz-rich vein material, from the dumps of the 18th-century lead mines

Lead-mining was one of Scotland’s few domestic industries in the 18th century. As access to the Highlands was improving, the search for new sources of lead turned west and north. Mines were first ‘discovered’ by Sir Robert Clifton around 1730 at Tyndrum, on the southern edge of Rannoch Moor, when he took a 38-year lease with John Campbell, 2nd Earl of Breadalbane and his son, to search for “Gold Silver Copper Tin Iron Lead and Coal mines … within and under the Earldom of Breadalbni…”