Report - Chaffont mine chilmark dec2022

[Doozer]

History
This one has a couple of names to go by such as Linda barrow or barrow and chilmark north but I like teffont mine so I’m going with that. Stone has been mined at chilmark since medieval times and was used on buildings such as Salisbury cathedral. In 1936 the quarry and mines closed when the demand for limestone fell due to concrete being a cheaper and preferred building material and were bought by the air ministry and was used as a storage area for raf chilmark.
Explore
Visted with @richiemelon. We did this one at the dead of night when we thought nobody would be about, how wrong were we! As we got through the gap in the fence we walked towards the entrance and 2 vans pulled at the main gate, our aseholes dropped as we thought mod police but it turns out they were staying in tents above the mine entrance. So we carefully climbed into the mine trying to make as little noise as possible! Once in we took 5 minutes by the saw blade to recuperate and ventured on. This is quite a small mine in all fairness and there is so much shit laying about it’s not very photogenic so I didn’t really take a great amount of photos but here they are!
A survey of the mine

the few pictures I did take

 

[DeaKew]

Cool seeing the machinery, although that junction box and sticker don't look very 30's! has it been maintained/restored recently?

 

[Doozer]

I believe that the quarry lease expired in 2006 but reading through some reports while I was researching say that the lease must have been extended to 2009 as someone found references that suggest this. I found that by looking at the survey you can see that the western part of the mine has been dug less erratic than the eastern side which suggests the western side is more modern dug. Also looking at the scars on the pillars it looks as if they’ve used a coal cutting machine to cut the stone

 

[Hutchy95]

I believe that the quarry lease expired in 2006 but reading through some reports while I was researching say that the lease must have been extended to 2009 as someone found references that suggest this. I found that by looking at the survey you can see that the western part of the mine has been dug less erratic than the eastern side which suggests the western side is more modern dug. Also looking at the scars on the pillars it looks as if they’ve used a coal cutting machine to cut the stone

I live not far from here and can confirm you are right, 2009 is when it all stopped down there. There another mine located opposite I’ve been in once before, it had something to do with storing the ammunition for the RAF back in WW2. If you want to know more have a look at RAF Chilmark ammo store.

 

[Bikin Glynn]

Pretty decent that