Having been extremely busy with work over the last 2 months, this
was the first trip underground for a while. I was in the mood to take some more
up to date photographs of this mine, and coupled with the fact that Karl had
never been in Brownley before, it proved the perfect combination as there was
no rushing around trying to see everything.
All in all we did not go a
great distance in to the mine, but that was never the purpose of the trip. At
the main junction by the flooded engine shaft we followed the Wellgill Cross
Vein heading in, stopping to look at the the odd feature. When the link to
Hagg's was reached we popped down this and I climbed down into Hagg's to have a
quick look around. I spotted some tins and other artifacts, along with the
collapsed shaft behind the engine room above. I returned back up in to Brownley
and we climbed up into the engine room for a look.
From here we took the
right turn onto the Brownley Hill Vein, and then after climbing up into a stope
working we had lunch. After this, a look was had at the deep blue pool further
along. Carrying on along the vein a rise was reached and we both climbed into a
stope working which had a small series of calcified steps. Karl looked around
for discarded mineral specimens whilst I took more photographs. Rooting around,
I managed to find a detonator with a little bit of ragged black match sticking
out of it - a very nice find. Finally we dropped back down into the horse level
and carried on for a while. The plan that we had did not exactly align with
what we saw, and I think we may have headed along a route which was taking us
to the Brownley Hill North Vein in the region of Tatter's String, but I could
be wrong in this. In the end we turned back and retraced our steps to the
Wellgill Cross Vein with a view to exiting.
On passing the Brownley Hill
Middle Vein, we got sucked into the fine arching there, and soon we found
ourselves climbing up into the flats above. I had been along the passages
before, but never in the flats. I realised that this area was a little jackpot
find. The flats seemed to have two levels, with lots of rail tracks and points.
We came across many ore shoots and even found an ore truck - admittedly badly
decomposed, but still nice to see. Due to the later than planned start we had
to get going, so we took as many photographs as we could and then headed
out. |
