old ash with the 4 legged friends

[ditzy 24//7]

saw this in copd and fancied a look. acess is as in the book
as we only took the happy snapper i let bri take some pics

bri unlocking the gate

me and the dogs at the gate

just inside the gate

me with a mined pillar

looking back to the gate

me at the bottom of a small ramp

with the dogs at the bottom of the ramp

owd man pic marks

me in a mined out passage

low wet arch with rocks we crawled threw

bri taking a break with the dogs

stals on the roof

small crawl in solid rock

me with the dogs in a bigger passage with stacked deds

thats all we got this time as Dan got a load of mud and grit in his eye so we tried cleaning him up but ended up pouring water on it from a sheep trough
its a bit icky now but looks ok

 

[Brains]

Lots of evidence of fire setting in there, wonder how old the workings are? There were quite a lot of pick grooves and a very few shot holes, but not as many as I would have expected. Feels like natural passage altered by mining in many places. Think we will have to go back for another explore but without the mud magnets!

 

[Elaine]

Smile next time Brains. You know you want to! 

 

[Brains]

Smile next time Brains. You know you want to! 

I will try my best, the camera was on a go slow charging the flash etc so my "model smile" had got tired and reverted to bored!

Found some web sources that reckon the mine is a mineralised phreatic system with very early mining - medieval or earlier, by firesetting, with some more recent reworking using black powder.