The footpath running from the main bridleway across to Bole Hill is the most badly signed and difficult to locate on Blacka. You start from the main bridleway junction by Lenny Hill, now rivalling junction 33 on the M1 following the latest repairs, you make your way up to the third railway sleeper crosspiece. A path is visible going through the bracken to the left. After picking your way down a slopeyou arrive at a clearing and then the stream - the Lea Stream. It's necessary to cross this and then climb steeply initially through a muddy gully and then straight up whether you discern a path or not.
Eventually a path of sorts can be seen near the top. Soon a small cairn comes in view.
The area all around is a scheduled Ancient Monument, site of an old lead smelter. Archaeologists claim to be able to see the components of this site but apart from an amount of slag and a depression or two in the ground I've never found anything that looked remotely in need of protection. Indeed in the last survey the words 'possible' and 'may be' are so frequent that doubts are confirmed. It seems odd that in Italy, say, there is so much wonderful classical and renaissance remains that they cannot afford to maintain them, yet here some people write lengthy reports about things that can barely be seen.
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