The site of the South Bradda Lead Mine (also known as Minehough), which operated between 1850 and 1863, worked by the South Manx Mining Company; over that period the mine produced around 178 tons of lead ore and 146 tons of copper ore. Stone mauls found near the mine point to earlier, prehistoric copper-mining activity in the same area. The mineral vein exposed at the mine was described by the geologist Sir Warington W. Smyth in 1878 as "the noblest surface exhibition of a mineral vein to be seen in Europe".