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.
Click on the thumbnails for a full picture and
description. Back to Brownley Hill Trip
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