Nellie Kirkhams Field Notes

Mark

Well-known member
Before he passed away John Beck meticulously scanned the collection of field notes which Nellie left to Doug in 1979

There is some very useful information here.

There are 31 boxes of notes, each with 3 - 400 pages.

I have created a dropbox account from which these can be downloaded

I will post a link to each box as I get time.

Please let us have your comments or thoughts on any information you find useful.

Box 1

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eyo75kg9srf0xnf/1.%20VI%20SW%20a8%20-%20IX%20SE%20h10%2025.pdf?dl=0



 

AR

Well-known member
Download will have to wait until I'm back at work as the home connection is piss-poor, or will be at least until W3Z get the satellite service up and running round here, but I'm certain there will be masses of use in there!
 

Moose

New member
Good effort Mark, I am certain that John would have been delighted that they are being used for the greater good of cave research.
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
AR, there's a good bit about cockheads head mine near eldon quarry. At about pg 177 they seem to call it s.p. Mine (stockport potholers mine)
 

bograt

Active member
Really great you are doing this Mark, unfortunately my copper wire feed is giving me problems, keep up the good work !! (y) (y)
 

droid

Active member
Excellent work Mark.

Nellie Kirkham's books were what got me into the lead mining history of Derbyshire, 45 years ago.... :)
 

AR

Well-known member
John did try and explain to me how the card index worked one night in the pub, and I recall it sounded horrendously complicated - now I've seen it I can see that it is! I'm sure it made sense to Nellie....
 

Mrs Trellis

Well-known member
Cockshead Mine should be an interesting place for you Alastair. It's yet another mine which seems to have hit the natural streamways from the Perryfoot area towards the "Speedwell Master cave" but west of Eldon Hill.

"Stockport Potholers" were Jimmy Lovelock, Bernard Chandler etc. Most went on to the DCC after it split entirely from the OCC and met in Stockport.
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
The card index appears to be alphabetical, so if you know the site you want to read about it should help you.

Box 1: vi-ix (6-9) appears to be castleton
Box 2: ix-xiv (9-14) i have not been in this one yet.

The next section of the code seems to give a compass bearing, i've seen similar to this on some of the borehole records from the British geological survey, but i have no idea if these are the same type of compass bearings or map references.
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
alastairgott said:
Box 1: vi-ix (6-9) appears to be castleton
Box 2: ix-xiv (9-14) i have not been in this one yet.

From first appearances only ix appears to be castleton, any numbers before that relate to things which are more northerly. So guessing that the numbering system starts in the north (west?) and works down to south (east?) as the roman numerals increase.

On castleton (ix) i think that nellie has divided it into north and south along the sparrowpit-castleton road, with odin and such in the north and all the others in the south.

Struggling to work out where the east-west split is in the castleton area. And also struggling with the letters and numbers after the initial referance
 

Rob

Well-known member
Mark, great work getting these made available.  (y)

It's obvious straight away that for us to get the most from this resource we need a good index, one that's searchable and/or alphabetical, attributing each cave to the page numbers of each pdf. The existing card index isn't enough, not only because nobody can understand it yet, but also because it's hardly human readable, let alone computer readable!

To start off the discussions I've had a quick go with the first 60 pages of the first file, using an excel format to simply list cave/mine names as the appear against the pdf page they are on:

1. VI SW a8 - IX SE h10 25
1.1 Index
1.2 Peak Cavern
1.5 Kinderlow Cavern
1.6 Oakinedge
1.6 Devonshire Mine
1.7 Kinderlow Cavern
1.11 Odin Mine
1.14 Rushup Edge Mine
1.18 Hubbadale Mine
1.18 Whale Sough
1.21 Upper Odin Mine
1.23 Rushup / Castleton Close Grove
1.25 Mine End Pipe
1.26 Odin Mine
1.27 Odin Sough
1.28 Castleton Catchment Map
1.29 Odin Sough
1.59 Windy Knoll
1.60 Blue John Mine

I've not repeated consecutive pages, to try to keep down the numbers of entries. Putting 1.18 (rather than just 18) means that when all 31(!) boxes are done all entries can be in one file and sorted alphabetically. This is assuming that each pdf has it's box number in the title, as per the current setup. That excel file can then be shared (either in excel format or pdf).

What do people think? Any suggestions? It's going to take quite a bit of time even with just these two first files, let alone all those to come, so it's got be be quick and easy to do. But if done in the right format from the start it won't need redoing, should be easy to update with an increased level of detail, and there should be enough interested parties to spread the load...
 

AR

Well-known member
The Roman numerals, as I understand it, relate to groupings of the old Ordnance survey maps - these groupings are of 16 maps for 25" and probably 4 for 6", group IX covers part of Chapel, Peak Forest, and Castleton. I'll have to have a proper look when  get chance, also do a screengrab of the index map.
 

mch

Member
What an amazing resource! Many thanks Mark for your hard work in sharing this with everyone.
 

AR

Well-known member
Now I've had a proper look at Rob's indexing suggestion, I agree that'd be a good way to do it, and if it's done on a spreadsheet then you can have multiple worksheets with the data organised in different ways. When I set up the index for the Obs and Discs section of the PDMHS newsletter, I did two sheets; one with the data organised by issue number and one organised alphabetically. IN this case, it should be possible to rearrange the data into both alphabetical listing and catchment so it can be compared quickly with CoPD.

A thought about an online home for this - among a myriad of other things, I'm working on the new version of the PDMHS website, could we possibly host the files there at some point in the future, along with an index?
 

peterk

Member
AR said:
The Roman numerals, as I understand it, relate to groupings of the old Ordnance survey maps - these groupings are of 16 maps for 25" and probably 4 for 6", group IX covers part of Chapel, Peak Forest, and Castleton. I'll have to have a proper look when  get chance, also do a screengrab of the index map.
There is a list of Derbyshire 6" sheets with the Roman numeral references at http://maps.nls.uk/os/6inch-england-and-wales/derbyshire.html They are hyperlinked to the online maps but it looks like the links are "down" (weekend maintenance?)

Within the 6" sheet the 25" sheets are numbered as:
25inch_index.gif


 
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