Ignore the track which bears left, it leads to the site of the old smelter of the Stonycroft Lead Mine.  The disused mine is one of the earliest in the district, probably dating back over 400 years, when a rich vein of galena ore was discovered in the bed of the stream.   The miners built a dam to divert the course of the stream and stoped out a great quantity of ore from its former bed.  Later they sank a shaft beside the stream, stoping out ore to a depth of over forty feet.  The mine was abandoned  in the early 17th century after the dam burst, filling the shaft with mud and water, reputedly several lives were lost in the disaster.  The mine was re-opened in 1846 by the Keswick Mining Company who expected to find the remains of the buried miners but all that was found were some ancient tools and lengths of crude chains.  The company sank the shaft another 60 feet and drove two levels out from it to extract more ore but the quantity raised was insufficient for the operation to be commercially viable 

At around the same time as they were operating the Stonycroft Gill Mine the Keswick Mining Company extended the mine road towards Sail Pass for a distance of two miles to exploit a large vein of cobalt ore which had been discovered below Long Crag.  A huge investment was made in constructing a light tramway on the road and in erecting a smelt mill, crushing mills and dressing floors together with the four levels which were driven into the vein.  It was all to no avail as the company found it almost impossible to refine the cobalt from the ore.  It's believed that only a few ounces of pure cobalt was produced