Aaaaargh....... My first report crashed !!
Try again !!
This was my second visit to Cononley this year.... and a venture in with someone more youthful, my son.
My first visit in April was with a friend, I thought a second visit would be more "encouraging"..... Not to be...
On the walk down the incline shaft I noticed shuttering that wasn't there on my first visit... A positive sign that the mine is managed, possibly by a caving club?
We proceeded down to the upper adit level, about 100 yard in and 25 yard down !!
We climbed the wooden ladder up onto the adit and I went as far as to where the floor had collapsed into the incline, my son jumped over the hole and ventured all the way in that was possible. One of the paths had had a mud slip, part of which had spilled down into the incline (This had happened since my previous visit! )
My sons pics of the upper adit are on the FB page :- https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...set=pcb.1491666620924057&type=3&theater&ifg=1
I went down back to the incline and went as far has what was freshly shuttered on my previous visit, this shuttering had now been buried and one pit prop was sitting redundant on the floor.
It wasn't much further there was more precarious shuttering with old rail tracks up to the roof..... I waited for my son to return, shouted him twice but the walls deadened my voice, he never heard me.
Upon his return he went up to the dubious shuttered part and said he didn't think I'd get through the tight spot (It was the politest time that he's ever called me a fat bastard !! ).
He shone a torch through though and noticed there wasn't any more shuttered edges and that the groud had been compacted with folk travelling through.
Yet again in another mine there was strings with stones hanging from the roof, these were attached to stainless screws in plugged holes, and weren't there on my previous visit... I'm beginning to think they may be something to do with surveying due to there being blue marking paint there too.
A little history taken from the web :-
"Some time subsequent to 1830, Messrs. Hall, of Newcastle, began the deep adit
level crosscut from a point in Nethergill, to the west of the village of Cononley, about
525 feet above the level of the sea, with a view of intersecting and draining thei main
vein at that depth. After driving through several faults and much disturbed ground for a
distance of of 90 fathoms, these gentlemen gave up the trial and the crosscut was
continued on behalf of His Grace the late Duke of Devonshire. The vein was met with
after a total drivage of 205 fathoms."
"The Main Vein is part of a large "fault", the throw of which has never been truly
ascertained by the miner, partly because the sides have been rarely seen, and further
on account of the disturbed state of the strata where the walls of the vein have been
proved. It is the most southern of all the lead producing districts of our county,
removed Borne ten miles from the nearest mine properly so called, and fourteen miles
from those producing lead ore in the Gritstone beds. These veins also proved the rare,
perhaps the only exception in the investigations made by Mr. C. Moore, of Bath, which
seems to establish the "existence of organic remains in the earthy matrix of mineral
veins in the carbon-iferous rocks." Again the main vein is the only one amongst the grit
producing mines of Craven which has yielded lead ore in quantities commercially
valuable, whilst traversing highly disturbed strata, and with accompanying masses of
shale in the vein itself: the veins in other mines requiring the beds to be comparitively
regular to prove productive, 9nd then as a rule becoming small and poor on the
approach of the shale either as a 1'cheek" of the vein, or thrown in as a leader, or
accompaniment of the vein."
"The Cononley mines were worked very many years ago, certainly before the
introduction of gunpowder into this district, but only to a shallow depth, except in one
place. The workers were stopped by their progress by the combined drawbacks of too
much water and too little lead ore. In one place, however, on the crown of the hill,
eastward, and near to ~ason's shaft, they got down to the depth of our Upper Adit
Level, or 24 fathoms from the surface at that point. Here the vein was poor"
... and the pics ................
The sign with a little history (and map )
The Engine house :-
The beginning of the incline :-
Fresh timber ?
Colours in the rock / fresh pick marks could also be seen in many places too
First lot of shuttering looking to the ladder to the upper adit
An old candle
Note: candles sold on the mine at 6s. per dozen
Upper adit left and right passageway (Note string on left passageway and a loose piece on the mud spill on the right)
Taken from the edge of the floor fallto the incline (right passage blocked off)
Redundant pit prop sat on spill the incline that had fallen through the floor from the upper adit
and the spill (with ladder) I was sat upon
As far as we got
The air inside felt good, with dust in the air moving... though we was only a short distance inside really...
Hope you enjoy the photos... and thanks for looking.
Try again !!
This was my second visit to Cononley this year.... and a venture in with someone more youthful, my son.
My first visit in April was with a friend, I thought a second visit would be more "encouraging"..... Not to be...
On the walk down the incline shaft I noticed shuttering that wasn't there on my first visit... A positive sign that the mine is managed, possibly by a caving club?
We proceeded down to the upper adit level, about 100 yard in and 25 yard down !!
We climbed the wooden ladder up onto the adit and I went as far as to where the floor had collapsed into the incline, my son jumped over the hole and ventured all the way in that was possible. One of the paths had had a mud slip, part of which had spilled down into the incline (This had happened since my previous visit! )
My sons pics of the upper adit are on the FB page :- https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...set=pcb.1491666620924057&type=3&theater&ifg=1
I went down back to the incline and went as far has what was freshly shuttered on my previous visit, this shuttering had now been buried and one pit prop was sitting redundant on the floor.
It wasn't much further there was more precarious shuttering with old rail tracks up to the roof..... I waited for my son to return, shouted him twice but the walls deadened my voice, he never heard me.
Upon his return he went up to the dubious shuttered part and said he didn't think I'd get through the tight spot (It was the politest time that he's ever called me a fat bastard !! ).
He shone a torch through though and noticed there wasn't any more shuttered edges and that the groud had been compacted with folk travelling through.
Yet again in another mine there was strings with stones hanging from the roof, these were attached to stainless screws in plugged holes, and weren't there on my previous visit... I'm beginning to think they may be something to do with surveying due to there being blue marking paint there too.
A little history taken from the web :-
"Some time subsequent to 1830, Messrs. Hall, of Newcastle, began the deep adit
level crosscut from a point in Nethergill, to the west of the village of Cononley, about
525 feet above the level of the sea, with a view of intersecting and draining thei main
vein at that depth. After driving through several faults and much disturbed ground for a
distance of of 90 fathoms, these gentlemen gave up the trial and the crosscut was
continued on behalf of His Grace the late Duke of Devonshire. The vein was met with
after a total drivage of 205 fathoms."
"The Main Vein is part of a large "fault", the throw of which has never been truly
ascertained by the miner, partly because the sides have been rarely seen, and further
on account of the disturbed state of the strata where the walls of the vein have been
proved. It is the most southern of all the lead producing districts of our county,
removed Borne ten miles from the nearest mine properly so called, and fourteen miles
from those producing lead ore in the Gritstone beds. These veins also proved the rare,
perhaps the only exception in the investigations made by Mr. C. Moore, of Bath, which
seems to establish the "existence of organic remains in the earthy matrix of mineral
veins in the carbon-iferous rocks." Again the main vein is the only one amongst the grit
producing mines of Craven which has yielded lead ore in quantities commercially
valuable, whilst traversing highly disturbed strata, and with accompanying masses of
shale in the vein itself: the veins in other mines requiring the beds to be comparitively
regular to prove productive, 9nd then as a rule becoming small and poor on the
approach of the shale either as a 1'cheek" of the vein, or thrown in as a leader, or
accompaniment of the vein."
"The Cononley mines were worked very many years ago, certainly before the
introduction of gunpowder into this district, but only to a shallow depth, except in one
place. The workers were stopped by their progress by the combined drawbacks of too
much water and too little lead ore. In one place, however, on the crown of the hill,
eastward, and near to ~ason's shaft, they got down to the depth of our Upper Adit
Level, or 24 fathoms from the surface at that point. Here the vein was poor"
... and the pics ................
The sign with a little history (and map )
The Engine house :-
The beginning of the incline :-
Fresh timber ?
Colours in the rock / fresh pick marks could also be seen in many places too
First lot of shuttering looking to the ladder to the upper adit
An old candle
Note: candles sold on the mine at 6s. per dozen
Upper adit left and right passageway (Note string on left passageway and a loose piece on the mud spill on the right)
Taken from the edge of the floor fallto the incline (right passage blocked off)
Redundant pit prop sat on spill the incline that had fallen through the floor from the upper adit
and the spill (with ladder) I was sat upon
As far as we got
The air inside felt good, with dust in the air moving... though we was only a short distance inside really...
Hope you enjoy the photos... and thanks for looking.
