A MOVE to reveal and conserve a monument to Victorian entrepreneurship and the boom times of North Yorkshire’s ironstone industry looks set to be approved.

The North York Moors National Park Authority’s planning committee will consider a number of works at Warren Moor mine – the only Victorian ironstone mine chimney still standing in the UK – which is due to be opened to the public for the first time.

The proposed preservation, access and safety works are part of a multi-million pound project, This Exploited Land of Iron, which is celebrating the legacy and landscape of ironstone mining on the North York Moors.

The mine, near Kildale, will form part of the network of Walks in the Land of Iron, taking visitors between sites and linking up with railway stations along the Esk Valley line.

The mine dates to the 1860s, when the iron industry in the North-East was rapidly expanding, leading to a search for deposits across Cleveland and North Yorkshire.

Tests at Warren Moor found the iron content was low, averaging barely 26 per cent, compared to 30 per cent found across most of the Cleveland area, but despite this the mine was developed alongside numerous houses and a railway line.

But firms behind the venture ran into financial difficulties and the planned shaft mine never started production. The site was closed by 1874.

After the scheme gained Lottery funding, Andrew Sutcliffe, of Kildale Estate and a member of the This Exploited Land Executive Group, said the chimney and its two shafts remained “a testament to those indomitable Victorian entrepreneurs who made Britain great”

Proposed works at the abandoned mine, include the installation of gates and grilles over accessible shafts to prevent fly-tipping and the risk of humans and livestock falling into the shaft.

Other planned works include lead capping on the grade II-listed chimeny to slow the process of deterioration from weathering, vegetation clearance, consolidation of brick and stonework and groundworks to provide a gradual slope to enable visitor access.

The proposals have not attracted any concerns, with responses from the Highway Authority, Natural England, The Coal Authority and Ecologist.

A spokesman for the scheme said: “It is accepted that the proposed grilles will provide the required level of security against unauthorised access and vandalism, together with ensuring an adequate level of health and safety measures for all users of the site, which is anticipated to increase as a result of the Land of Iron project work. The proposed ground works will not only serve to improve access and health and safety, but will also help to reveal this important site in a sensitive manner.”