Unfortunately that is all the information i have on the mine, except that the mine closed in 1896. Today the mine has (or had!) a very low enterance. The enterance itself is filled up with silt and rocks from sun hush itself; subsecuently the water level is backed up with a very small exit flow.
In July 2011, an old school mate, Me, a Pick & a Shovel made their way to the mine one afternoon. after several hours of digging and re -building the archway, we had removed several tons of rock, and made the enterance about a foot taller. I had a quick gander inside; the water level was still about belly button deep. The arching just inside the enterance is very unstable and fallen in some places. About 20 meteres in, i decided to make a U-turn.
Several days after the dig, My Dad (Mike M) and I returned to do a bit of UG Exploring. The Summary of the mine is simple: Horrid! The adit winds its way through several areas of shale and fallen archway. At one point, the archway had fallen in and opened up a hollow above. Whilst climbing over this archway i dislodged a keystone and the only thing that stopped it dropping out, was my hand when i caught it! Of course if i hadn't caught it and it had dropped out, the whole archway could have collapsed from beneath me, and most likely disloged some hefty looking deads from the roof....Just another day at the office in this hobby!
No comments:
Post a Comment