One of the current DCA projects on my radar is to get some caps on a line of shafts on Faucet Rake. The 5 shafts are on Oxlow Farm land between the parking for Oxlow and the turning to Peakshill Farm and are broadly parallel to the road.
I'm looking for a little knowledge and hopefully a PDMHS Bulletin article on the shafts. I'm specifically interested in hearing if anyone has descended them in the past.
The shafts need making safe, the question I am looking at is whether they are needing concrete lintel caps or caps with lids.

I've got the okay for a look down them but thought an armchair exercise would be best first.

Pete
DCA Projects Officer

Page the "Eyam Oracle", Doug Nash, via John Beck. If theres anything written, he will be able to find it in his library.

Eyup Pete

The shafts were looked at during the last credit crunch do, one of them is quite interesting.

The shaft is about 65ft deep and opens into quite a big natural chamber, with some formations, a washing floor and a natural rift which may pay further attention.

The shaft top is quite large and needs a considerable amount of work to install a proper lid, (there is a big steel sheet supporting the top at the moment)

We thought the best way to deal with the others would be to use plastic pallets dug into the sides of the shakehole to span the shaft, (cheap and long lasting), then pile rocks on top, as getting concrete beams to the job would be a bugger.

We were going to undertake this work as a favour for Roy and Jenny letting us dig on the moor, but were put off, by DCA saying Natural England etc would have to be consulted first.

Hi Mark, thanks for the reply.
The shafts are on a Scheduled Ancient Monument so would need to be consented but I understand both NE and the landowners are okay to proceed. The DCA could sort that if you thought a group would be interested in further exploration etc...
We really could do with lidding them over and stabilising them for the future.
The other thing is that they could do with surveying and adding to the Castleton Survey. No records exist as far as I can tell for these places so I'd like to get some records of depth/interest etc.

The shafts I saw today down Faucet Rake from Peakshill farm junction to the Oxlow parking don't really compare to your description, I wonder if I missed one?  Certainly did not see one with a big sheet over it, just knackered lintels or rotten wood. Would you care to describe the location of the big one?

It looks like I might try and get a team together to map the locations, survey and describe the shafts before or as part of a capping effort. I spent some time up on the top of the fields too today and there is a tonne of stuff up that way to look at too. I think I'll be getting quite intimate with that land this summer!

O.K., I know I'm just a menial Bograt, but I know both of you, and could arrange a meeting??

if they are a scheduled ancient monument, presumably consent is needed from English Heritage as well as Natural England?

graham said:

if they are a scheduled ancient monument, presumably consent is needed from English Heritage as well as Natural England?

Click to expand...

I'd have thought so too. EH entry: here

They are on a SAM and I'll be starting the ball rolling there today.

Bograt, I'd be very happy to have the input of someone like yourself, I will message you my email and number.
Thank you all for the replies and information so far.
Pete

Good effort Pete - these are important sites and I'm really pleased you're making the effort to sort them out, long term. I remember talking to Mark about these Faucet Rake shafts when the most recent Peaks exped was working on them and they certainly are of interest. I'm pretty sure that those who know most about the mining history (and are likely to be consulted when an application goes in) will support the initiative.

Pete, I started drafting out a monument consent application for the Faucet capping a while ago after having had a brief discussion with Jon Humble of EH, the main thing that was lacking at that point was firm details of how the shafts will be capped and how much ground disturbance would be involved - email me if you want a copy of this. I'm not sure if the shaft Mark is referring to is on Faucet or not, and there's a load more shafts down towards Eldon Hill on Slitherstones Rake and its offshoots which AFAIK have been covered with concrete sleepers

To the best of my knowledge there has not been any systematic investigation of the shafts and features in that area and nothing published I can think of.

Thanks AR, I've just started the ball rolling on EH consent with a detailed email to Jon. Bob Dearman tells me that NE are okay with this as are the landowners. I'd like to see what you had put together so far please.
Hopefully in the near future we can put together a team to systematically explore, survey, record and cap these all the sites up on Faucet and Slitherstones area.

Jon Humble is no longer the area monuments inspector, Tim Allen is now dealing with the Peak District. I'll send his contact details when I send the draft application form.

Thanks Adam

In the TSG Chapel Library there is a BSA document I found last year, written by Les Salmon, as far as I remember, which details preliminary investigations of certain shafts between Maskhill and P8 - I'm sure there were grid refs too. I'll try and dig it out this weekend when I'm over. I bet Eddie Mason knows some stuff too.

I might try to get up on the hill with my GPS asap and make a start on recording the location and state of these shafts. I have no day in mind really but if anyone cares to join me let me know what day works best for you and I'll probably be free. Can't do 9th, 10th, 12th or 14th May.
It would be good to get the locations really solid for the EH application and for the Castleton survey model.

Hey up guys
A little info on Slitherstones shafts 1, 2  3 way, way back in the mid 70's the PCC did a lot of work up there. You could go down Slithers number 1 and access slithers 2 and at that time through various risers and stopes access slithers number 3 which had huge chambers.
If you look in the J rat journals (which I have not had the time to do, there may be some info in there) the other way maybe is to contact Dave (Goughie) Gough, he may be able to resurrect the trip reports from the PCC club journals. As to the other shafts on Faucet Rake, we the PCC descend the open ones from the Eldon Quarry side back to the top of Oxlow Mine with some interesting finds but we were stopped from further investigations because of a change in land owenership.

Other shafts on the top the hill were descended at the time, again D Gough is the guy to talk to.

I must at some point get my long boxed up caving diaries out and put my early caving pics onto here.

T pot

Thanks for that T-Pot, PCC deposited their log books up to 2004 in the BCL so looks like a trip over to Glutton Bridge may be needed at some point!