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Report - - Ystrad Einion copper mine in Wales June 2013 | Mines and Quarries | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Ystrad Einion copper mine in Wales June 2013

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The Kwan

28DL Regular User
Regular User
So it was the usual arrangement were Landsker turned up with the knowledge and all of the important information and I as usual turned up with the sandwiches and Aldi's finest chocolate bars which is just as well because Landskers idea of a packed lunch is a wispa bar and a bueno...truth






some History

Although possibly of some antiquity the mine was certainly one of those worked by the Company of Mine Adventures about 1700 and slightly later by The Flintshire Mining Company. Nothing was done from 1760 until 1853 when the mine was restarted by a partnership of Charles Kirkpatrick and TA Readwin of gold mines fame. They abandoned it within a year but the mine was taken up by two brothers Thomas and Henry Jones who worked the mine until 1869.

In 1870 the mine passed into the hands of Mr Adam Mason who ran the mine throughout its longest working period and was responsible for installing the underground water wheel in a worked out stope.
The wheel is still there today but in a partially dismantled state due to scrap merchants removing its bearings about 1910.
The mine was worked up to about 1900, but was never profitable. The main ore produced was copper, although lead, zinc, and a little silver were also produced.

The mine has 4 levels accessible today, the highest the no 1 cuts an open stope. The next one down the no 2 contains the launder that fed the underground water wheel in the lower no 3 level.

Another level, the no 4 was driven from behind the dressing floors but the portal has long collapsed, however it is accessible by laddering up about 15 feet from the engine shaft reached from the no 3.

Records show that the engine shaft was sunk to a depth of 50 fathoms or 300 feet below adit, it is doubtful whether the blockage at adit level represents fill all the way to the bottom, a sobering thought



I was so glad to see the waterwheel after seeing images of it but I was not really ready for the scale of it and it was amazing.
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There were a lot of false floors that had been re bridged by friendly mine explorers
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and the obligitory video..WTF Youtube have done to the aspect ratios I dont know but its squashed to buggery, apparently its a power director glitch.

we dun got Tracks and lovely mineral deposits
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A monster Kibble and Lansker
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Yet another shitty floor, the water here was about 20ft deep and beautifully blue but it always is in mines.
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Dont know what type of sulphate this was but we found all different colours from electric blue through to white.
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A close up of the waterwheel
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Thanks for looking.
 
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