By the Rake Level adit there is an old Beaumont horse level adit
that has been blocked up. It is possible to get into the level via a drainage
pipe, which is buried in rubble but the section this gains access to is only
short as it hits a fall shortly. Doing some searching around we managed to get
into this level past the fall by another route in, which opens up some
additional 100m of passage, until another fall is encountered.
The
section we entered was found to be in very good condition (apart from the falls
at each end). The thoughts of us being the first ones there since the fall at
the entrance crossed our minds as there was no sign that modern explorers had
been in, clean walls, no muddy hand prints and no foot prints in the silt? The
section of level itself was straight, it had a ventilation door frame, and it
was possible that the actual door had been used to create a dam at a sump.
There was twin wire running along the level, which was broken every so often -
it looked like bell wire - could this have been shot cable? In the stone
arching we found little cubbie holes that were full of artifacts; lots of
Woodbine cigarette boxes (counted 5), the wires from detonators, a boot, a
glove, a hose connector and last but not least a cuddly toy.
Along the
level there was an air pipe, and the floor had rails in it, a few metres before
the far fall, the stone arching had buckled and bulged dramatically - something
definitely on the move. Pete also noticed that just before the deformed arching
there were a number of timber pillars, looking carefully you could see the
original old ones behind the more recent ones on the front, looks like some
shoring up had been done here. We returned to our entry point and exited the
isolated section of level - short, but sweet. |
