They sit at the highest altitude of any village in Scotland. Wanlockhead, in Dumfries and Galloway, nestling in the beautiful Lowther Hills, has a sign to prove its lofty reputation, showing 1531 feet.

About one mile away – also in the shadow of hills famous for being among the first to witness winter sports – sits Leadhills, the second highest village in the country at 1430 feet.

Both can also lay claim to being Scotland’s historic centre of lead mining in an area James Moir Porteus christened, for his19th Century history of area, God’s Treasure-House In Scotland. But a recent survey carried out in the Leadhill Miners Library found little information on the history of lead mining or its significance.

However, today, in a first of its kind, a conference is being held in an attempt to uncover Scotland’s “lost” history of lead mining.

The gathering, in Hopetoun Hotel, Leadhills, was initiated by Leadhills Heritage Trust with the support of Historic Environment Scotland, and will examine ways in which the mining they say has been “a largely forgotten part of our industrial heritage” can be remembered and brought back to life.

Speakers at the conference include key researchers who will look at lead mining’s importance to Scotland’s industrial development and how its heritage the industry’s history can be developed to “take its proper place in our national story”.

Leadhills Miners’ Library, founded by miners in 1741 with the help of the visionary James Stirling, who was put in charge of the Scots Mining Company in 1735, will be open for viewing.

The library’s admirers over the years are said to have included literary luminaries such as Burns, Wordsworth and Dickens and it is home to Britain’s oldest library banner, which featured on the Antiques Roadshow. But there is concern that, despite this cultural treasure trove, the area’s industrial history remains a well-kept secret.

Dr John Crawford, chairman of Leadhills Heritage Trust, said: “Although visitors to the library show a keen interest in the books and in Scottish and local history, we have found lead-mining history is less understood.

“The conference aims to raise awareness of this under-researched area and suggests ways forward. Two hundred years ago the Leadhills-Wanlockhead area was one of Scotland’s major industrial centres but today all that survives are the mine spoil heaps. This is an important and ignored part of Scottish history.

“The aim of the conference is to bring together people with an interest in the subject, identify issues and problems and, hopefully, identify ways forward. I would like to conference outcomes to include the formation of a group who can take things forward.”

While lead was mined as early as 1239 by the monks of Newbattle, it the mining of lead was a small-scale endeavour until the 1570s when Thomas Foulis, a goldsmith from Edinburgh, started to work the mines.

From the 16th Century to the early 1900s, the mines produced 400,000 tonnes of lead, 10,000 tonnes of zinc and 25 tonnes of silver. Sediment in the streams was even a source of gold.

The mines in the two villages were worked separately because the minerals in Wanlockhead belonged to the dukes of Buccleugh and those in Leadhills to the earls of Hopetoun.

In the 16th Century, gold from Leadhills, then known as Crawford Muir, was used for gold coins, including the “bonnet pieces” of James V.

It is believed that between 1538 and 1542 the district produced 1163 grams of gold for a crown for King James V of Scotland and 992 grams for a crown for his queen.

By the 1660s the mines were owned by Sir John Hope, and profitable enough to justify building roads the 50 miles to Leith to allow the metals to be exported.

The arrival of a railway in 1900 was not enough to ensure return the mines’ profitability and mining activity in Leadhills ceased in 1928, though it continued for another decade in Wanlockhead.

Besides the Lowthers, Dr Crawford said he wants to see more research

into other lead mining areas, including Tyndrum in Argyll and elsewhere in Dumfries and Galloway.

“There is a lot of primary source material but nobody has looked at it properly yet,” he said. “Nobody has done any co-ordination and brought it all together,” added Dr Crawford.

One of the library’s treasures is an archive of “Bargain Books” that record the contracts miners and bosses agreed between 1737 and 1854. “There may well be similar material like this elsewhere and it needs to be explored,” he said.

It also has the only library pulpit in Britain where the venue president sat while presiding over meetings.

And it contains a large collection of Bargain Books which records the short term contacts which teams of miners agreed with the mine managers between 1737 and 1854.

“There may well be similar material like this elsewhere and it needs to be explored,” he said.