Rob
Well-known member
Over the last few months a few members of the Eldon have been exploring and surveying an old lead mine called Halls Old Grove, high up above Bradwell. The finds continue to be quite significant in size (although with only small natural so far) and mentioned here as a record and also to draw attention to the main trip reports on the Eldon Website.
Exploration of HOG Mine was first conducted in the 80-90s with little recorded, in fact we have no idea who did this (although could probably guess some of the culprits). As far as we can tell it was next investigated properly in 2009 by Dan Hibberts, Bob Toogood and a few other Eldon members, and recorded well in an Eldon Journal at the time. Loose and deep in nature, it was mainly enticing to us due to the proximity to our recent projects and also the large draught at the entrance.
With the help of mini me I located the entrance one weekend in a long abandoned quarry. With no evidence of restricted access, the Team started rigging our way down the following week, using a mixture of the previous bolts and new ones. Down short climbing shafts and through large rifts, we quickly reached the previous ?end? at 73m deep, but as we were surveying each trip we could quickly work out the likely way on to be a bolt traverse higher up. That indeed lead through to what seems to be another mine, with some large open rifts and chambers. Here the mineral vein was up to 4m wide in places!
Further bolt climbs and muddy traverses lead us to a short cartgate and through to potentially another mine, this with even wider chambers probably from a worked out pipe vein. Artifacts are sparse but present, including tallow candles and bits of clay pipes. It is near here that the work continues with further bolt climbs up into something lurking above.
Now 430m in length, with a max depth of 83m, it is a predominantly horizontal trip, but one that uses +300m of rope! The plan is for the place to be opened up as a ?trip? once the exploration has been concluded, so much so that we hope to leave it rigged for a while to allow people to enjoy it.
Until then you can keep up with developments in forthcoming Descents and also with the trip reports on the Eldon Website here:
http://www.eldonpotholeclub.org.uk/index.php/homepage/current-uk-projects/halls-old-grove
Exploration of HOG Mine was first conducted in the 80-90s with little recorded, in fact we have no idea who did this (although could probably guess some of the culprits). As far as we can tell it was next investigated properly in 2009 by Dan Hibberts, Bob Toogood and a few other Eldon members, and recorded well in an Eldon Journal at the time. Loose and deep in nature, it was mainly enticing to us due to the proximity to our recent projects and also the large draught at the entrance.
With the help of mini me I located the entrance one weekend in a long abandoned quarry. With no evidence of restricted access, the Team started rigging our way down the following week, using a mixture of the previous bolts and new ones. Down short climbing shafts and through large rifts, we quickly reached the previous ?end? at 73m deep, but as we were surveying each trip we could quickly work out the likely way on to be a bolt traverse higher up. That indeed lead through to what seems to be another mine, with some large open rifts and chambers. Here the mineral vein was up to 4m wide in places!
Further bolt climbs and muddy traverses lead us to a short cartgate and through to potentially another mine, this with even wider chambers probably from a worked out pipe vein. Artifacts are sparse but present, including tallow candles and bits of clay pipes. It is near here that the work continues with further bolt climbs up into something lurking above.
Now 430m in length, with a max depth of 83m, it is a predominantly horizontal trip, but one that uses +300m of rope! The plan is for the place to be opened up as a ?trip? once the exploration has been concluded, so much so that we hope to leave it rigged for a while to allow people to enjoy it.
Until then you can keep up with developments in forthcoming Descents and also with the trip reports on the Eldon Website here:
http://www.eldonpotholeclub.org.uk/index.php/homepage/current-uk-projects/halls-old-grove