Ball Eye Mine

[Gritstone]

Having read the article again, it would appear your red and blue lines meet up at Flatstone junction. The left turn runs to 2 forefields and a right turn ( my dark blue) to the shaft up to my yellow cross.
Your red line runs along the "Matlock Sough," ending in digs that have potential but not much safety after the dig under Flatstone and a further collapse. If it hasn't already been quarried away, it's probably very shonky

Thanks for that, I'm totaly in the wrong place then. But the enf of that level is a collapse leading to a split in direction, left to the dam and right to a cascade with a short level to a collapse and at the bottom of the cascade another stumped level. The water flowing out of the dug shaft reappears from below a pack at the bottom of the climbing shaft just inside the gated entrance by the tin shed, then disappears under several possible blockages. I'm really confused as to where to dig. Any chance of a visit. I'd love to get some of the passage open that I've seen in the old pictures of the place. Thanks again.

 

[History Trog]

 

[History Trog]

View attachment 26433

Above is an extract from my re-drawn map of the Ball Eye - Wapping map for the Matlock Book, which I sent to the editor on Tuesday, its preparation going ahead now. This shows the various soughs at Ball Eye, as far as I know. The site of the Flat Stone is way over in Holland's Mine (near the right margin of the crop). That was the point where the water from Ball Eye could be turned to go either to Masson Mills or Matlock Bath. My ambition in the 1970s was to get to the Flat Stone and then decide whether Matlock Bath or Masson Mills should be flooded. The continuation of the sough under the quarry was so dangerous that it stopped Lawrence Hurt (a really tough explorer) in c.1968 and when we turned up in 1970, it had collapsed more. Realistically, the best hope of regaining the Flat Stone would be to attempt Holland's Mine.
Incidentally, Matlock Sough is an invented name - I do not know the old miner's name for the Ball Eye end but the bit west of Holland's Mine was known as Hopewell or Hopeful Sough. Fountrabbey Level was just a made up name, should be Ball Eye Level, which is confusing because there were other Ball Eye Level - including the one partly cropped off the bottom right corner of the above map.
You are doing marvellous work with this digging at Ball Eye - keep it up!

 

[Brains]

View attachment 26433

Do you have a high resolution copy of the survey from pp17-18 of the PDMHS Bulletin 4-4? The resolution of the PDF is quite poor and I struggle to read the attached labels. Combined with the text that can be both detailed and vague it is easy to misinterpret What's where!

Looking forward to the new book

 

[Lampwick]

I'm really confused as to where to dig

Sorry to enter the conversation a bit late, but you shouldn't need to dig any more. The blockage was preventing access to the junction where right goes to a cascade and left (up-stream) to the dam. There's nothing to be gained from pushing the down-stream section as you'll be getting close to the Via Gellia. Bring on a long dry summer!

 

[Gritstone]

Above is an extract from my re-drawn map of the Ball Eye - Wapping map for the Matlock Book, which I sent to the editor on Tuesday, its preparation going ahead now. This shows the various soughs at Ball Eye, as far as I know. The site of the Flat Stone is way over in Holland's Mine (near the right margin of the crop). That was the point where the water from Ball Eye could be turned to go either to Masson Mills or Matlock Bath. My ambition in the 1970s was to get to the Flat Stone and then decide whether Matlock Bath or Masson Mills should be flooded. The continuation of the sough under the quarry was so dangerous that it stopped Lawrence Hurt (a really tough explorer) in c.1968 and when we turned up in 1970, it had collapsed more. Realistically, the best hope of regaining the Flat Stone would be to attempt Holland's Mine.
Incidentally, Matlock Sough is an invented name - I do not know the old miner's name for the Ball Eye end but the bit west of Holland's Mine was known as Hopewell or Hopeful Sough. Fountrabbey Level was just a made up name, should be Ball Eye Level, which is confusing because there were other Ball Eye Level - including the one partly cropped off the bottom right corner of the above map.
You are doing marvellous work with this digging at Ball Eye - keep it up!

Thank you, when is your book due to go out? Let me know, I love a good history book. Especially when it has a significance to my interests.

 

[Gritstone]

Sorry to enter the conversation a bit late, but you shouldn't need to dig any more. The blockage was preventing access to the junction where right goes to a cascade and left (up-stream) to the dam. There's nothing to be gained from pushing the down-stream section as you'll be getting close to the Via Gellia. Bring on a long dry summer!

Thank you, that's a shame, I would love to have seen the old level. The pictures of it and Nelies description make it sound pretty awesome.
The down stream section is very I description as the water sinks in so many places at the bottom of the two shafts in the entrance chamber behind the iron gate.
Maybe time to move on to a few other Peak ecoterica that needs a fresh pair of hands to regain it's former self.

 

[Gritstone]

Do you have a high resolution copy of the survey from pp17-18 of the PDMHS Bulletin 4-4? The resolution of the PDF is quite poor and I struggle to read the attached labels. Combined with the text that can be both detailed and vague it is easy to misinterpret What's where!

Looking forward to the new book

I've only ever seen the crappy PDF, and there's me thinking it was down to my ageing eyesight

 

[Brains]

Thank you, that's a shame, I would love to have seen the old level. The pictures of it and Nelies description make it sound pretty awesome.
The down stream section is very I description as the water sinks in so many places at the bottom of the two shafts in the entrance chamber behind the iron gate.
Maybe time to move on to a few other Peak ecoterica that needs a fresh pair of hands to regain it's former self.

The photo you refer to is a beautiful hand picked section of coffin level/ sough? If it's the one I am thinking of it is in the level just downstream or at the junction beyond the dam, where my dark blue passage from my yellow cross meets the "Founterabbey Sough" in my red. Don't give up hope, it's just through the dam!

 

[Brains]

Managed to find this on the web, but couldn't find the image owner/ taker
I believe this to be the junction above the dam, which I have described above. This would predate the dam, or the explorers laddered the shaft from the yellow cross. My friends have taken a similar picture of this place after descending the shaft and going downstream towards the dam until the coffin level got too deep/ too little airspace. I am too large to fit the shaft at the yellow cross. This is ginged and at the base of a funnel but not deep. It leads to a crosscut and pitch to the sough somewhere along my deep blue line

 

[Brains]

I believe this picture by @royfellows from UKC is at a very similar place, with the first photo taken from by the feet of the subject in the second. Roy would have been behind the subject in first photo to get this image

 

[Brains]

...and again, this photo by my friend RR was taken before the quarry was reopened

 

[History Trog]

Assume you want a hi-res version of Lawrence Hurt's survey as in Bull. 4.4. Had a devil of a job to find my copy because in 1972 I cut it out of the bulletin, put a pencilled grid on it and manually enlarged it so that we could use it as a basis for surveying all of Ball Eye, right up the Clatterway. So my original has faint pencil lines on it and is slightly soiled but I have scanned it a 1000 dpi on my ancient scanner - 14 meg. Will see if I can attach it or something.

 

[History Trog]

If it does not copy off satisfactorily, pm me and can send you the 14 meg file. Hurt's actual survey lines seem good but he missed off many side passages, we which added to our version, along with vein details etc. Each of the pencilled rectangles I enlarged to A3 size but our final survey is so large that there is not a room in my house with space to lay it out. Will have to scan it in pieces and merge it with Photoshop. Andy Hayes and myself never got round to publishing it because of various difficulties. Jim Rieuwerts wanted to do a joint article with me on Ball Eye but we never did so before he died. Must try to sort it sometime. Have survey done by Cyril Maddocks (the last spar miner there) of Blackwell Pipe Caverns, now quarried away.

 

[pwhole]

I'm afraid that won't be any better Roger, as the dpi on browsers is only 72dpi or 96 dpi, and it's only 1000 pixels tall, so I still cant read anything. If you can email the full-size one to me I'll happily clean it up and possibly be able to improve it? I thought I had the relevant Bulletin on paper or I'd scan it myself, but sadly I only have Vols 1-3, and this one is 4

As an aside, I have photographed some monster surveys pinned on walls before and got good results, especially photographing in tiles and then stitching together with a panorama app. My full-frame sensor gives 7360 pixels horizontally, which gives 590mm at 300dpi, so even just four images stitched can give excellent results. The latest lenses are also so sharp and corrected that there's no loss of quality at the edges either.

 

[Brains]

Thanks @History Trog as @pwhole says, the text is still illegible

 

[Gritstone]

View attachment 26503
...and again, this photo by my friend RR was taken before the quarry was reopened

Yep those are the pictures. I'll see how the water levels go this summer and have a go at dismantling the dam. As you can see from my pics it's to the roof still, not a chance in hell it can be removed yet.
It is however easy to get to as a dig goes and the water is warm for a change.

 

[Gritstone]

If it does not copy off satisfactorily, pm me and can send you the 14 meg file. Hurt's actual survey lines seem good but he missed off many side passages, we which added to our version, along with vein details etc. Each of the pencilled rectangles I enlarged to A3 size but our final survey is so large that there is not a room in my house with space to lay it out. Will have to scan it in pieces and merge it with Photoshop. Andy Hayes and myself never got round to publishing it because of various difficulties. Jim Rieuwerts wanted to do a joint article with me on Ball Eye but we never did so before he died. Must try to sort it sometime. Have survey done by Cyril Maddocks (the last spar miner there) of Blackwell Pipe Caverns, now quarried away.

 

[Gritstone]

Thanks, it's the other ways into the Sough that interest me now, and potentially to follow the water as far as possible. That means following a huge amount of potential sinks. I'd like to cut that down if possible. If you could send me the whole file that would be great, I can read the text and transfer it to the crap online copy and maybe make a thing happen, or maybe not, but it's worth a try.

 

[History Trog]

PW - have emailed you a revised 7 meg version of my scan which is perfectly legible - it just did not upload on to this website properly. If Gritstone lets me know how to pass it on to him, I shall do so with pleasure.
One day I shall have to get round to scanning our massive survey of Ball Eye area in pieces and then stitch it back together with Photoshop. I used the Panorama facility in Photoshop frequently when preparing the diagrams for the Matlock book.