I received an email from a land owner asking if I knew anything
about an old mine entrance that they had found on their land, they had been
into it as they had some caving experience, but turned back once they came to a
junction. Out came the books relative to Alston Moor, but after searching for a
while I could not find anything and I was beginning to think that the entrance
might be an undocumented trial level, looking at OS maps from the last 100
years did not reveal a level at the location either. Knowing its position and
closeness to other mines and veins I came to the conclusion it was a trial
level searching for the Clargill Vein. Someone though, must know about it as
the owner had found some piping going into it - so only two possibilities a
local farmer or explorer activity. I spoke to Karli about it and it rang a bell
with him, it turned out that one of the lads from the local pit had found it
and installed the pipe as a syphon, but no one had bothered to look further
into it.
A time was arranged with the land owners, Margaret and her son
Jake and we met up to explore the level further. Coming to the entrance we saw
that some rocks had come down from the roof and this was what was causing the
water to back up, there was no gate. Climbing in over the fallen rocks we
quickly entered cold and thigh deep water. The level was unlined and driven in
through sandstone, which looked to be fairly competent. We did notice thin shot
holes along the way and at approximately 100m in we came to a crosscut, heading
left and right with the level continuing past this. This was the eastern end of
the Clargill Vein.
The crosscut was about 1m above the main level. At
the junction there was a blind rise some 4m high. To the right (east), the
crosscut went on for maybe 6m and ended. Left (west) the crosscut went on, and
we made our way along it. It was quite low and in places there where stemples
with fill above them. Across the stemples thin branches had been placed,
instead of the usual planks, which made me think that this was maybe a much
older working compared to what we normally get to explore. In the mud and
calcite crust on the floor there were no signs of footprints or anything else
to indicate that modern explorers had been in. Once past the stemples we came
to another blind rise, this one some 10m high, past this the crosscut seemed to
turn more into a level with no workings above. Maybe some 70m from the junction
we came to the forehead.
Back on the main level we continued up the
drive heading south. The silt at the bottom of the water here started to stir
up and soon we were walking in tomato soup. There were a few falls along the
level, but nothing major - just loose material from the roof. The strata south
of Clargill vein was completely different from the north side. We were in a
shale band which seemed to be stable. Many ochreous formations could be seen on
the walls and some spectacular ones hanging down from the roof. At around 50m
on the left hand side we came to some pack walling constructed from shale
blocks with upright wooden pillars. Here we found the one and only partial
artefact down the mine - the ceramic bottom of a jar or bottle. Past this we
came to more formations and then maybe another 50m brought us to the forehead.
At this point we were truly getting tango'ed. We turned back to go out and to
repeat the experience on the way out. |
