The houses of Hillersdon Terrace, with their large gardens, were built especially for the London Lead Company’s skilled craftsmen, employed as smelters or in management positions.
A description of the Nent Valley in 1874 reads: “The little valley of the Nent was once a fairy land and had its flowery meadows and wild shams and bosky breays and Nentsbury for its capital till the wealth of mining speculation began to improve and enlarge the narrow strip of enclosed land that fringed the margins of its crystal streams and blotch its gemmed and emerald fields with the rubbish of its mines levels and gutter its heads and sided and poison its sweet waters with washing ores and hush away the soil and diluvial covering of the rocks in prosecuting the discovery of veins. The new buildings attached to the ancient Nent Hall add much to the picturesqueness of the valley. Since the enlargement of the mining village of Nenthead and its conversion into a Market Town in 1828 that place has become the emporium of the valley.”