Rough Tearsall

Groundhog

Member
Having found a survey of Rough Tearsall near Matlock dated 1973 I am wondering why this mine doesn't appear in Caves of the Peak District. Does it on longer exist? Even if it doesn't I would have thought it would get a mention.
 

mikem

Well-known member
Presumably from this report: https://pdmhs.co.uk/MiningHistory/Bulletin%205-6%20-%20A%20Survey%20of%20a%20Mine%20in%20Tearsall%20Rough,%20Wensley.pdf

Seems to have been at least partly quarried away, although it may now have stopped (p.33):
http://russellsoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Issue-72-March-2018.-Online-PDF..pdf

Doesn't the book only contain mines that broke into natural passage (it's not called Caves & Mines)?
 

pwhole

Well-known member
John Beck told me years ago that they had made a decision to exclude many mines from the COPD list on several grounds (I'm paraphrasing, but it's roughly correct):

Practicality and time - the book would have been three times larger and three times later if it had included most of them
Safety - many of the mines just could not be recommended for entry due to the uncertain conditions
Legality - many mines have more than a landowner issue to overcome (mineral rights, legal requirement to keep entrances sealed etc.) and so recommending certain mines for visits may have created more problems. The recent trend of publicising unauthorised mine exploration on the internet, and particularly social media, may exacerbate this issue in certain areas.

Possibly also as many mines are explored by folks who don't have much interest in natural caves, and there are several mine-specific publications already out there with the space to document them more fully - like the PDMHS Bulletins ( a treasure trove of info dating back to the late 1950s).

Personally, I haven't ever been unable to find or explore a mine because it wasn't in COPD. As Cave Registry Secretary I'm always happy to add mines to the database, as this is an online resource, and so can be as large as we like - and we can include more up-to-date info as access or safety situations change. How that's filtered down into the next book remains to be seen but I'm sure there are ways to overcome the size issue. But first we have to sell the remaining copies of the current edition!
 

AR

Well-known member
The Tearsall Pipe Caverns shown in Roger Flindall's survey were pretty much destroyed by quarrying at Tearsall in the late 1970s.
 

Groundhog

Member
Some friends and I visited the area yesterday. There is indeed a quarry where Rough Tearsall used to be. After wandering around in the mist for a bit we found Sump and pool shafts into Tearsall Pipe (Caverns??). Not difficult as vapour was rising visible from them and several other capped shafts. We went down Sump shaft and had a bumble about for old times sake. 2 of us had not been in there for 52 years.
Suffice to say that we couldn't understand why we ever went down there and will not be going back anytime soon. I suppose there is potential for undiscovered natural cave around there but all I can say is good luck with that!
ps Nice pint in the Miners Standard  :beer:
 

pwhole

Well-known member
Funnily enough I went looking for Sump Shaft in spring and couldn't find it. I did have a nice time down Pool Shaft though, partly as I love the interplay between natural cave and mined passage in places like this, and trying to work out what it might have looked like before the miners altered it all. We did Brightgate Cave the same trip and I found some chiselled initials near the maze that I hadn't heard of before - I know there's plenty of smoked graffiti lower down. It must have been fun doing all that exploration with candles.
 

zomjon

Member
Hi Andy, are we talking about Bright gate or Tearsall? Nice to see you're still around, fancy an Xmas trip, we got Craig down Mask I'll the other month!
 

mr conners

Member
Sounds like a plan. Tearsall was a bit of a disappointment to be honest. I've never visited Brightgate but I would be interested.
Yes to an Xmas trip, I'll get Al and Craig out too.
 

pwhole

Well-known member
I liked Brightgate - it left me with the feeling 'there must be more here' - as in, below the current floor at the bottom. No doubt others thought so too, as evidenced by the digs at the bottom. I don't know anything about them but it did look like a big job to dig out all the sediment, so I can imagine they must have been abandoned for practical reasons rather than no hope of extension. I can't imagine the bottom chamber is that far below the surface, as the dip of the beds seemed roughly the same as the slope of the hill they're developed in.
 

Fishes

New member
My Grandfather sold Tearsall Rough and the rest of Tearsall Farm to Bill Marsden in the 1950's. My father remembered one of the shafts still being worked infrequently in the 1940's.

Bill Marsden removed most of the hillocks here as well as some at Dalefield Mine, Snitterton Park and Old Millclose/Windmill mines by the time I was a young child in the 1960's.

I remember some small scale opencast mining at Tearsall Rough in the 1960's and early 1970's when OP Mole and PDMHS explored the accessable workings. These grew much larger into the in the late 1970's and 1980's and removed most of the previously explored workings. Many of the other shafts to the south were unfortunately also trashed by hillocking operations in the 1980;s.

The Pool Shaft and other Tearsall workings as known today probably have no connection to the other workings apart from locality a they as they are at a different geological level.We did find a bit of natural in the next field south (Sam Haynes Pasture) as well as in the mine now known as Old Ash.

Regards

Fishes
 
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