History:
The earliest workings on Pinner's chalk are believed to date back as far as the 14th century, however, the main work on these mines did not begin until the 19th century.
At the time, these quarries were owned by a builder, who sought to use the chalk to create lime for his building work.
One example is the church in Pinner High Street, which is said to of been built from the same chalk that came from the mines.
The mines would only operate for a few months during the summer, during which time, numerous vertical shafts were put through to aid the extraction of chalk up to the surface, where work would be carried out in two-man teams, with one man hewing the chalk, and the other filling the barrow, which would then be hauled up to surface via the nearest shaft.
It's unknown exactly when work at these mines came to a halt, however, the latest recorded piece of identifiable miner's graffiti is July 28th 1870, and so it is led to believe that chalk extraction would've ended around the same year.
Pinner Mine (date unknown)
On with the explore:
After a good month or so of myself battling it out with the others to come up with a date we could all make to do this, the time had finally come...
Night had fallen, and so I linked up with @Stitch, @TheUrbexMedic and @samrielly to embark on what would later become a rather long night.
Once we'd done some stumbling in the dark using just a dim red light, we found the manhole and began to get to work, this alone took almost an hour before we had the thing open and rope gear set up.
Fortunately, one by one we made it down the 50ft shaft unscathed, and lo and behold, we were in!
Now with everyone off the ropes, we began to make our way around the first section, praying our rope gear would remain untampered with whilst we were under...
This place started off somewhat stoopy and wet, but soon dried up as we approached the first set of chalk galleries.
Now into the main galleries.
Myself for scale
Believe it or not, despite the mine not being anywhere near as extensive as some places we've been, we still found ourselves to be lost more than once, which we put down to everything looking near enough the same, with almost no features to help distinguish one gallery from the next.
Once we'd found our whereabouts, however, we pressed on.
In the next part of the mine, we noticed they'd plugged voids in the roof with concrete, which relates back to an article we saw posted 5 years ago, about how a sinkhole had opened up near the school above, causing a full inspection of the mine's structural stability to be carried out, with the addition of concrete in varies parts of the ceiling.
After a while, I decided to put the camera away, as opportunities to get photos that didn't all look like each other started to run out...
it was beginning to approach 03:30 AM, and with all of us near enough on the brink of flaking out, we decided to use what energy we had left for the ascent back up to the surface.
It took roughly 10-15 mins each for us to get back out again, with the last 10ft by far being the hardest given how much our arms were already aching...
With all four of us now safely back to the surface, it was time to bit by bit pack down the rope gear and finally call it a night.
Now each with achy arms, tired eyes and a heavy rucksack, we said our goodbyes and began to go our separate ways into the lonely streets of Pinner...
For me, this was by far one of the best-kept and most spacious chalk mines I've seen, especially for London, all in all, we were glad to get it done, and come away with a half-decent collection of shots!
Hope you enjoyed ~
The earliest workings on Pinner's chalk are believed to date back as far as the 14th century, however, the main work on these mines did not begin until the 19th century.
At the time, these quarries were owned by a builder, who sought to use the chalk to create lime for his building work.
One example is the church in Pinner High Street, which is said to of been built from the same chalk that came from the mines.
The mines would only operate for a few months during the summer, during which time, numerous vertical shafts were put through to aid the extraction of chalk up to the surface, where work would be carried out in two-man teams, with one man hewing the chalk, and the other filling the barrow, which would then be hauled up to surface via the nearest shaft.
It's unknown exactly when work at these mines came to a halt, however, the latest recorded piece of identifiable miner's graffiti is July 28th 1870, and so it is led to believe that chalk extraction would've ended around the same year.
Pinner Mine (date unknown)
On with the explore:
After a good month or so of myself battling it out with the others to come up with a date we could all make to do this, the time had finally come...
Night had fallen, and so I linked up with @Stitch, @TheUrbexMedic and @samrielly to embark on what would later become a rather long night.
Once we'd done some stumbling in the dark using just a dim red light, we found the manhole and began to get to work, this alone took almost an hour before we had the thing open and rope gear set up.
Fortunately, one by one we made it down the 50ft shaft unscathed, and lo and behold, we were in!
Now with everyone off the ropes, we began to make our way around the first section, praying our rope gear would remain untampered with whilst we were under...
This place started off somewhat stoopy and wet, but soon dried up as we approached the first set of chalk galleries.
Now into the main galleries.
Myself for scale
Believe it or not, despite the mine not being anywhere near as extensive as some places we've been, we still found ourselves to be lost more than once, which we put down to everything looking near enough the same, with almost no features to help distinguish one gallery from the next.
Once we'd found our whereabouts, however, we pressed on.
In the next part of the mine, we noticed they'd plugged voids in the roof with concrete, which relates back to an article we saw posted 5 years ago, about how a sinkhole had opened up near the school above, causing a full inspection of the mine's structural stability to be carried out, with the addition of concrete in varies parts of the ceiling.
After a while, I decided to put the camera away, as opportunities to get photos that didn't all look like each other started to run out...
it was beginning to approach 03:30 AM, and with all of us near enough on the brink of flaking out, we decided to use what energy we had left for the ascent back up to the surface.
It took roughly 10-15 mins each for us to get back out again, with the last 10ft by far being the hardest given how much our arms were already aching...
With all four of us now safely back to the surface, it was time to bit by bit pack down the rope gear and finally call it a night.
Now each with achy arms, tired eyes and a heavy rucksack, we said our goodbyes and began to go our separate ways into the lonely streets of Pinner...
For me, this was by far one of the best-kept and most spacious chalk mines I've seen, especially for London, all in all, we were glad to get it done, and come away with a half-decent collection of shots!
Hope you enjoyed ~
