Report - Kingsdown / swan mine

[Matt3579]

So after looking online at box mine and not wanting to be disappointed we headed to swan mine instead, parked in the pub opposite, had a brief chat with the landlord, he was happy for us to park there and said to pop in for a pint when we were done.
So we headed in the more open entrance first nothing too impressive did a loop on ourselves and came back out as not much to see in there, bar the frog we spotted on the wall.

 

[Matt3579]

After heading back out we went to the main entrance and headed on it to explore

 

[Matt3579]

We headed in took a few different paths and walk ways not to far in if you follow the main path there is a collapse but just enough room to crawl through (sadly I didn't take a shot of it but its plenty big enough for me 6,3 broad shoulders and my friend 6 foot and a beer belly to crawl through)
We saw some good sites and covered most of the mine over a 4 hour period various tools and old cans along the way.
We saw what I think is an old wash basin or so I type thing, a nice little calcium deposit and then the crane that's been crushed under a collapse, but then not far we found the fully intact crane and a nice note stating it's not stable do not touch dated 2017, and it's still standing so its nice to see people pay attention to it just after the crane we found a drop and a nice ledge to sit and eat our lunch.

 

[Matt3579]

We did leave out mark so to speak in 2 places we built a totem pole from various rocks the plan is to go back in a few months see if 1 they are still standing and secondly if anyone has added to them. Let me know if you do

All in all a good day and as it was still early when we left we drove down the road to box and had a little look around trying to scout an entrance for another day but I'll do that in it's own thread
Hope you guys like my first review

 

[mw0sec]

I have a B&W photo of that sink taken around 1986 - it looks unchanged!

 

[obscurity]

good effort on the report. I like swan mine its small but perfectly formed. As a side note you really should lose a few images and condense this down into one post rather than multiple posts or they will be lost during achieving. You should also include the month and year visited in the title.

 

[Gasman]

Did you go into the one next door too?

 

[Lord Oort]

I'll never understand why people insist on going in the old main entrance; you miss out a lovely little section of the mine and its very easy to get into the main adit from there.

Bet you didnt find this section though.

Btw was in there last night and the cairns you built are already down. Some complete whoppers have knocked a hole in the little tunnel leading to letterbox and have also removed a lot of the supporting stones from the entrance to the 'dangerous fall' passage thats near the letterbox in the main adit too. Place is absolutely covered in blue and yellow arrows again which really pisses me off as Swan is nigh on impossible to get lost in and super simple to navigate.

If you're gonna do underground then you really need to get a tripod and a decent torch.