Search for Limley Mine Airshaft

[Goydenman]

Close to the Nidderdale Goyden cave system is Limley Lead mine. The portal is used as a gear storage area such as boards, old rope and buckets etc. We dug the mine adit to find a very small extension. The way on from there was not only blocked worth fill but missing the walling. Research found that the adit was backfilled and walls removed before the installation of a railway up the dale to build the dams. Recent further research by Tony Cook of the Black Sheep Diggers compared late 1800's maps with modern ones to locate the position of the lost airshaft. The mine is associated with the caves in the area so we were keen to get in there. Digging by hand would be too big a project but then the land owner and tenant farmer offered their support plus the loan of an excavator. The data showed the shaft to be at the top of the field by the wall, the farmer's feeling was that it was further down the field at the site of an obvious crater. Over the years he has been tipping in rubble only for it to still sink away. June 24th came and time to use the excavator. BSD cavers family and friends turned out, the weather was hot. The site by the wall was dug 4m square and nearly 3m deep. The Crater was then dug to about 4m. No mining activity was found in either site nor cave. Although the day did not yield a result it was fun, a good social gathering and clearly showed the strong positive relationship we have built with the local community a benefit for BSD cavers and visiting ones to Nidderdale.

 

[tomferry]

Very interesting. I am assuming you have tried all the old os maps, which overlay and change transparency?

 

[mikem]

Seems to have better records than most:

Browse records of other archives | The National Archives

The official archive of the UK government. Our vision is to lead and transform information management, guarantee the survival of today's information for tomorrow and bring history to life for everyone.

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk

North Yorkshire actually have a list of all their mine holdings:

https://archivesunlocked.northyorks.gov.uk/CalmView/GetMultimedia.ashx?db=Catalog&type=default&fname=fb%5C921f34-32c9-4999-98c7-863fcbba1b22.pdf

I see you've already been using some of that info:

New Goyden Developments

The BSD are pushing a number of leads in New Goyden at present. 1. A 25m high aven just beyond the Planetarium - this was climbed to a chamber at the top with nasty steep mudbank. In the roof was small tube that after digging opened into standing height passage with choke roof and wall very...

ukcaving.com

 

[mikem]

Does the crater line up with the expected route of tunnel? - as it could be to do with the water swallow marked on the first survey.

Unfortunately a slight error in angle would put the air shaft along quite a wide sweep of the wall (2nd map on your previous thread linked above)

 

[ChrisB]

a slight error in angle would put the air shaft along quite a wide sweep of the wall

Might the shaft be where the wall kinks a bit? Which would have existed first?

See also the dry grass and slight depression in the field above:

Side by side georeferenced maps viewer - Map images - National Library of Scotland

 

[Goydenman]

Thanks for your comments folk. Tony one of our team overlayed old maps with modern and the walls and even trees lined up nicely. We are confident about being in the right area. There is some leeway due to changing position in history of Limley portal. In hindsight we think the shaft may well be deeper than expected below the topsoil

 

[Goydenman]

Does the crater line up with the expected route of tunnel?

No it does not. It is next to shallow valley and land drain that takes water to exit bank side near Frog Pot

 

[mikem]

The wall kink would definitely be worth investigating (unless there's another obvious reason for it's existence)

 

[Goydenman]

Tony wrote this on our FB site......

During the post mortem in the pub Chris and Tony have come to the conclusion that without access to the bedrock (which turned out to be too deep down) it was too difficult to search for any clues via soil disturbance etc. We needed solid rock exposed to enable us to positively find any filled shaft.
The mine was closed down 121 years ago and we can only speculate that the ginging that must have been present lining the top part of the shaft could have been completely dislodged and dropped into the shaft as the first stage of filling it in, followed by covering with soil.
For reference the shaft was a short 10 meters drop to a level at the top of the main lead vein. The mine survey showed that further in along this top level the lead ore vein originally had four 10 meter deep risers coming up from the entrance adit level to the shaft level giving a 20 meter drop from shaft surface to the mine entrance. All the miners work was done working upwards until they hit the barren "top grits" strata.
With two Victorian mine surveys (1890 and 1895) giving the same results for the field location of the shaft we are still convinced we were in the right place. The deep depth of the soil (4+ meters) and just a days access to do the work and clean up were against us (we shared the field with a herd of cows and a large but placid bull so we had to close down the dig before we left). A shame but the project is now over.
The only possible postscript is if our dig on the Dry Wath fault (at New Goyden upstream sump) encounters the mine cross cut that was driven to the fault from the main adit - that would be an unlikely surprise.