Report - Hendre Flurospar mine, Wales aug 18

monk · Sep 2, 2018

[stolen from the Kwan]
Hendre Spar employed seven men below ground and ten men at the surface and was worked on six levels, originally accessed by a steep decline which is now flooded. Both Calcite and Fluorspar were mined, the mine was worked until 1981, when the adit was sealed.
Uses include glass making, as a flux in iron and steel making. It is also used in the chemical industry to make fluorine to add to drinking water and toothpaste. Fluorspar was also used to make chloro-fluorocarbons, which used to be used as aerosol propellants and in fridges and lenses for telescopes and other optical equipment.

Been a while so thought id stick a report up, one of quite a few mines we've done in North Wales of late, myself and cheryl met Eoa near where we thought the entrance was, a bit of searching around and it was soon located.

we made our way down the ladder and through the small entrance at the bottom of the shaft, once through here it opened up into a decent size, we followed the passage along over some sketchy rigged up bridge with a nice drop below it into a different level, from here I cant remember the root we took but I know at some point we climbed up a ladder to another level before we started to go down.
Once we started to climb down it seemed like ladder after ladder, I dont mind ladders but cheryl is not a great fan, to her credit she nailed each one, even the ones where they drop of onto slippery rock slopes and you have to hold a rope to get to the next set of ladders.

Not a massive mine but certainly big enough to be worthwhile, and lots of fun if you like ladders.