1. The History
Not a great deal of information on this former Derbyshire lead mine, located close to the Derbyshire village of Monyash. It is located close to where one of the wharf pipes surfaces. It dates back quite some time due to the easily worked mineralised caverns, most likely to around 1540, until the mine was abandoned circa 1900. The mine includes coffin levels (and pick-marks), a horse gin, a large engine shaft and a smaller climbing shaft. It also has evidence for “fire-setting” in its upper workings. This technique involves setting fires against the rock face to heat the stone. These areas were then doused with water, causing the stone to fracture through the resulting thermal shock.
2. The Explore
Only report I can find on here is this lovely write-up from Mr Budge HERE
This place is pretty open access and a regular haunt of the caving guys. After the squeeze through the entrance pipe (the second of the day!) we looked around the adit entrance level for a good half-an-hour or so. To fully explore this place you really need to have SRT gear, so you are able to get down the shafts to the other levels. Despite that though, we got enough pictures for a report so here it is.
3. The Pictures
The adit entrance is down there somewhere!
Here we go…
And we’re in:
And into the first cavern:
The lesser-spotted pink cave octopus:
Some close-ups of the cavern wall:
Random iron sheet:
More mineralisation:
Into the next cavern:
Time for that crawl back out:
That's all folks!!
Not a great deal of information on this former Derbyshire lead mine, located close to the Derbyshire village of Monyash. It is located close to where one of the wharf pipes surfaces. It dates back quite some time due to the easily worked mineralised caverns, most likely to around 1540, until the mine was abandoned circa 1900. The mine includes coffin levels (and pick-marks), a horse gin, a large engine shaft and a smaller climbing shaft. It also has evidence for “fire-setting” in its upper workings. This technique involves setting fires against the rock face to heat the stone. These areas were then doused with water, causing the stone to fracture through the resulting thermal shock.
2. The Explore
Only report I can find on here is this lovely write-up from Mr Budge HERE
This place is pretty open access and a regular haunt of the caving guys. After the squeeze through the entrance pipe (the second of the day!) we looked around the adit entrance level for a good half-an-hour or so. To fully explore this place you really need to have SRT gear, so you are able to get down the shafts to the other levels. Despite that though, we got enough pictures for a report so here it is.
3. The Pictures
The adit entrance is down there somewhere!
Here we go…
And we’re in:
And into the first cavern:
The lesser-spotted pink cave octopus:
Some close-ups of the cavern wall:
Random iron sheet:
More mineralisation:
Into the next cavern:
Time for that crawl back out:
That's all folks!!
