After exploring Yew Crag slate mine, the holes running up the other side of the valley also looked interesting - these are entrances to the Kimberley and Honister slate mines inside Fleetwith Pike.
There’s plenty of history available so I won’t repeat it here - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honister_Slate_Mine.
There’s also a book, Honister Slate Mine, which has some useful info, even if it reads in part like a hagiography of the family who currently own the site.
But to give an idea of the physical layout here’s a tourist display with added lines.
Transport. Stone is heavy, low value stuff so moving it around efficiently is important for mine economics.
The long red line on the right is an incline (tramway) built in the late 1800s at a steep angle up the face of the crag to get slate down from the Honister mine.
The shorter red line on the left is another incline for Kimberley.
The Honister incline, although an engineering achievement at the time, was pretty exposed so an internal incline (tramway in a tunnel, dotted red line) was constructed along with a connection (link level, dotted orange line) between the bottom levels of both mines.
An aerial ropeway (black line) was subsequently added in the 1920s to swing down product, also stopping off at the bottom level of Kimberley, which acquired its own internal incline in the 1930s.
Road access up the mountain eventually improved so that slate could be driven down and the aerial ropeway was abandoned in the 1950s.
Tourism. Some parts of both mines are now visitor attractions - you can take a mine tour (£17.50) along the lower levels, or climb around worked-out chambers in the middle of Honister (£55).
The Honister external incline has also been commercialised - for £60 you cross a wire bridge and climb around on either side of the path leading up to the top.
Slate is still being extracted from the upper levels of Kimberley (black area on the diagram above) and made into things in a workshop down in the valley.
Even this active mine can toured out of hours, which will set you back £25 (£100 for a minimum booking of four people).
All of which is very enterprising and apparently popular, if rather expensive.
However on none of these tours will you be allowed to poke around the derelict/unused parts and on most you won’t even be allowed to take photos.
Explore. I started off by having a quick look in the lower levels of both mines while tours were in progress and the lights were on, then spent the rest of the afternoon outside exploring old mine entrances (adits) on the Honister external incline.
When everyone had gone home I went back in the dark and wandered the tunnels and caverns for several hours.
This isn’t a particularly big place, with maybe a couple of miles of tunnel tops - nothing like the huge Welsh mines e.g. Maenofferen.
I didn’t realise at the time but there’s already a report on here https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/honister-slate-mine-may-2018.113266/, although this really only covers some of the tourist route.
Starting outside at the top of the Kimberley external incline, here’s the only winding drum left on this side of the valley.
Moving over to the Honister external incline, we start near the remains of the aerial ropeway and read the educational sign…
…then head uphill checking out old adits.
There were 19 at one stage according to a mine plan but most of them are blocked by collapses sooner or later. Some examples:
Now we’re at top of the second (Nag Back) section of the incline with another helpful sign.
Through the Ash Crag tunnel, which has a large worked-out area sloping down behind the waste on the left.
And on up past more adits up to the remains of the Ash Crag winding station near the top.
Above here is an old open quarry which has yet another opening which you could probably climb down, although I didn’t bother.
There’s good view of the Yew Crag incline from the top - the arrow points to the other surviving winding drum in this valley.
With the outside done, now it’s time to go inside - let’s do Kimberley first.
continued
There’s plenty of history available so I won’t repeat it here - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honister_Slate_Mine.
There’s also a book, Honister Slate Mine, which has some useful info, even if it reads in part like a hagiography of the family who currently own the site.
But to give an idea of the physical layout here’s a tourist display with added lines.
Transport. Stone is heavy, low value stuff so moving it around efficiently is important for mine economics.
The long red line on the right is an incline (tramway) built in the late 1800s at a steep angle up the face of the crag to get slate down from the Honister mine.
The shorter red line on the left is another incline for Kimberley.
The Honister incline, although an engineering achievement at the time, was pretty exposed so an internal incline (tramway in a tunnel, dotted red line) was constructed along with a connection (link level, dotted orange line) between the bottom levels of both mines.
An aerial ropeway (black line) was subsequently added in the 1920s to swing down product, also stopping off at the bottom level of Kimberley, which acquired its own internal incline in the 1930s.
Road access up the mountain eventually improved so that slate could be driven down and the aerial ropeway was abandoned in the 1950s.
Tourism. Some parts of both mines are now visitor attractions - you can take a mine tour (£17.50) along the lower levels, or climb around worked-out chambers in the middle of Honister (£55).
The Honister external incline has also been commercialised - for £60 you cross a wire bridge and climb around on either side of the path leading up to the top.
Slate is still being extracted from the upper levels of Kimberley (black area on the diagram above) and made into things in a workshop down in the valley.
Even this active mine can toured out of hours, which will set you back £25 (£100 for a minimum booking of four people).
All of which is very enterprising and apparently popular, if rather expensive.
However on none of these tours will you be allowed to poke around the derelict/unused parts and on most you won’t even be allowed to take photos.
Explore. I started off by having a quick look in the lower levels of both mines while tours were in progress and the lights were on, then spent the rest of the afternoon outside exploring old mine entrances (adits) on the Honister external incline.
When everyone had gone home I went back in the dark and wandered the tunnels and caverns for several hours.
This isn’t a particularly big place, with maybe a couple of miles of tunnel tops - nothing like the huge Welsh mines e.g. Maenofferen.
I didn’t realise at the time but there’s already a report on here https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/honister-slate-mine-may-2018.113266/, although this really only covers some of the tourist route.
Starting outside at the top of the Kimberley external incline, here’s the only winding drum left on this side of the valley.
Moving over to the Honister external incline, we start near the remains of the aerial ropeway and read the educational sign…
…then head uphill checking out old adits.
There were 19 at one stage according to a mine plan but most of them are blocked by collapses sooner or later. Some examples:
Now we’re at top of the second (Nag Back) section of the incline with another helpful sign.
Through the Ash Crag tunnel, which has a large worked-out area sloping down behind the waste on the left.
And on up past more adits up to the remains of the Ash Crag winding station near the top.
Above here is an old open quarry which has yet another opening which you could probably climb down, although I didn’t bother.
There’s good view of the Yew Crag incline from the top - the arrow points to the other surviving winding drum in this valley.
With the outside done, now it’s time to go inside - let’s do Kimberley first.
continued
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