SEARCHING the fells for granite, lead and copper will feature in a day of talks by Cumbria Industrial History Society.

The group, which also arranges factory visits and walks with an industrial theme, is holding its spring conference on Saturday, April 27 at the North Lakes Hotel Penrith.

Talks include the development of the mechanical excavator, lead smelting in Cumbria, the past and future of Shap pink Granite and latest work to preserve the Tilberthwaite copper mine, near Coniston.

You can find out more about the conference and the work of the society on its website at www.cumbria-industries.org.uk

Last year's events included a visit to Abbeyhorn and a book launch. This year will see visits to a quarry and a corn mill and a walk around Canal Head at Kendal.

Fewer than 50 copies remain of the society's book called Cumbria’s Industrial Past, based on some of the 18,000 slides taken over a 50-year period by member Mike Davies-Shiel, who died in 2009.

The teacher at Windermere Grammar School and the Lakes School pointed his camera at mills, factories, mines, quarries, kilns and forges.

A major project by the Cumbria Industrial History Society included digitising his slides and negatives, arranging their safe storage at Carlisle Archive Centre and the production of the book.