"Copperas was green vitriol of ferrous sulphate heptahydrate" used in textiles as dyes and metallurgic processes in the form of sulphuric acid. (Pers com Bayliss 1991). This site "was in existence by 1815 and worked until the 1850s or later..". Buildings converted to a farmstead after closure and burnt down in the 1920s. (ibid.) The origin of the moorland landscape is uncertain though this area is likely to be moorland by the Roman period (see Bevan 2003 for discussion of environmental evidence).