Slaley Sough

[Madness]

Given the Scheduled Ancient Monument status of Bonsall Lees, there's surprisingly little information about the mining there on the internet. With regard to removing and then rebuilding a beehive cap, I'm not sure that I'd be in favour of that. Essentially you'd destroy something ancient and replace it with a modern replica. It just wouldn't be the same in my mind. If the original beehive cap has become little more than a pile of stones, then that's a different matter. Obviously any investigative work at such a site should be done properly. Perhaps one day a group will decide to undertake such a project.

 

[AR]

It's not an ancient one but a 20th century rebuild. How do I know? It's resting on a length of quarry rail....

It is on my list of things I'd like to investigate properly but obviously, I need both the farmer and HE onside!

 

[Madness]

Well, if it's a 20th century rebuilt beehive, it might as well be a 21st century rebuilt beehive.

AR, you seem to be a man with a very long 'to do' list. I hope you manage to accomplish it all. Perhaps one day I might have time on my hands to start that sort of list instead of my current one of DIY jobs

 

[al]

A group of us paid a visit to Slaley Sough last night and found the whole place to be very intriguing.

We had a good draught throughout, and a reading for oxygen identical to the surface reading right up until just before the final forefield, when it dropped by around 2%. Couldn't find the crack and there was no sound of running water.

The puzzling thing about the passage size is compounded by the evidence that this was a fully operative tramming level - there were sleepers and at least one track tie. I don't believe that infrastructure like that would have been introduced without some significant ore to be extracted. And, if that was the case, how did the ore get to the surface? Surely not through the Old Man's Cross Cut??

The raise looks very intriguing, and has obviously been climbed in the past.

The recess (shown on Flindall's survey) looked as though it could have been a chamber used for buddling, and the passage leading to Thunder shaft has a series of egg & eyes just below roof level which could have supported troughing of some kind, suggesting that the shaft was used as the source of water for buddling.

Another puzzle is the huge pile of toadstone partly blocking the tramming level at the junction where the passage to Thunder shaft goes off. There is no evidence of a roof-collapse here, and the tramming level obviously continued through the junction when it was working, so the pile must have been put there by the miners either just to get rid of it, or as a dam?

And, of course, the big question is why it is called a sough, when it patently isn't.

A very interesting place indeed.

 

[Madness]

A lot of rock has had to have come out of Slaley in creation of the later passages and I find it hard to believe that it all came out of the entrance level. Why wasn't the entrance level enlarged?

I've read somewhere that the internal shaft/winze to the right at the first T junction has a rubble floor and may have been backfilled. However, this could never have taken anywhere near the required amount of rock. I suspect that there isn't evidence of any significant spoil heaps on the hillside above, so you'd have to assume it's all on the hillside below the entrance.

It's a pity the venture wasn't better documented.

 

[al]

Agree that the cross cut entrance is an unlikely route for anything - certainly anything that needed trucks to convey it on part of its journey. The only possibility I can think of is upwards.

Apart from the obvious spoil heap just below the current entrance, there are several spoil heaps above and towards Dunsley Springs from that entrance, and quite a few shafts too.

 

[Roger W]

Could they have found a massive natural void and dumped the spoil in there (as I understand happened with the "Bottomless Pit" in Speedwell)?

 

[Madness]

Okay, time for wild speculation.

Bonsall Leys level is below Slaley Sough at road level. What if another level was driven half way up the hill between Bonsall Leys Level and Slaley Sough? And what if that level intersected the originally much deeper right hand shaft/winze. The passage that had rails in Slaley is large right up to the winze, so waste could easily have been dumped down it. Any entrance to a lower adit could easily be obscured by slope movement and vegetation.

If waste went upwards out of Slaley, wouldn't there be evidence of a Gin on the surface?

I might just have to get back into Slaley and climb those raises, if I can find the time to do it. It would be interesting to find out just how close to the surface they get.

 

[al]

Flindall shows four raises on his survey. I didn't actually spot the first raise (where the Old Man's Cross-Cut meets the main passage). The second raise looks like a stope and has two entrances from the main passage just before the low passage through to Flixen Rake. The third raise is shown as a run-in, and is above the pile of toadstone I referred to in my post. A few of us stared long and hard at the roof there, and nobody could make out a run-in raise - hence my question. The fourth raise is the one to climb, but this wouldn't make a good hauling shaft, as it hades.

I like your idea of a lower entrance, and I happen to know a small dedicated band who are slowly but surely becoming expert at removing blockages from shafts. As soon as they are free from their current task, I shall point them in the direction of Slaley!

 

[Madness]

The first raise is immediately on the left as you turn left from the entrance level into the newer level. Markpot tells me that he has climbed this and it is indeed blind

 

[AR]

There's a lot of tipped deads below Slaley, if you come up from the road you realise just how much as you struggle up it. Although the outer section is low, don't forget that it's much easier to move along a low passage when you're pushing a wagon so the 19th century miners may have left the outer section as-is rather than doing the dead work of making it higher.  Having said that, I wouldn't discount a level in between, though I've not seen any signs of one.

As for a gin, some of the ground above that area has been sparred so any surface evidence will have been removed; the only certain gins are further west.

 

[Katie]

Didn't realise you hadn't seen it Al, I would have pointed it out! I pointed it out to someone.....

 

[markpot]

The raise I climbed as madness has pointed out is blind and passes over the main level for only a few metres,maybe a prospective raise.
As Al said I reckon the 4th raise is the one to climb.
I have been all over the bank towards tufa cottage and there is plenty of evidence of past ventures and the odd ruined coe but I haven't seen anything resembling a run in level.

I found a reference to a  mine in the fields above called thunder mine.it has a small adit and some substantial spoil tips and rightly or wrongly I found an old hand drawn pdmhs doc refering to slayley sough by that name?

All a bit confusing. Madness did you get my email?

 

[Madness]

All a bit confusing. Madness did you get my email?

Yes mate. Not read it yet though.

Cheers

 

[markpot]

I find the claims of fraudulent input intersting as the level was driven on the same continuation of great rake similar to bold pit and,later burrows on the other side of the valley up towards middleton .the same owners had snake and goloconda,maybe profitable ventures ont to tother side fueled a drive towards bonsall leys,whitelow ect?we may never now?

 

[Madness]

Mark

Just read the page that you emailed. It's interesting that it quotes a figure of 203 loads of ore from the original workings and that it was known as 'Prosperous'.

203 loads, to me sounds like a lot of ore. Where did all that come from given what can be seen now? I can only recall seeing the one small stope and no real sign of much ore coming out of the place.

 

[robjones]

... The fourth raise is the one to climb, but this wouldn't make a good hauling shaft, as it hades...

In mid Wales few shafts are vertical for their entire depths - most follow the variable underlies of the veins for much of their lower parts. Haulage was invariably by kibble, with the footwall of the shaft heavily planked where necessary to smooth the passage of the kibbles - though they still wore through.

So whilst the fourth raise it might not be an ideal haulage route, don't discount the possibility that it was used for haulage...

 

[AR]

I find the claims of fraudulent input intersting as the level was driven on the same continuation of great rake similar to bold pit and,later burrows on the other side of the valley up towards middleton .the same owners had snake and goloconda,maybe profitable ventures ont to tother side fueled a drive towards bonsall leys,whitelow ect?we may never now?

There was certainly interest in the north side of the VG in the 1850s, as is shown by this plan: https://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Personal-Album-431/Bonsall-moors-15172.pdf but as I've previously mentioned on this thread, it was misplaced as the veins under the toadstone seem to be largely barren.

 

[Madness]

Assuming a Dish of lead ore weighed 65lbs and there's 9 Dishes in a Load, then:-

65 x 9 = 585lbs lead ore in a load

203 x 585 = 118,755lbs lead ore

118,755lbs divided by 2.2 equals 53,979kg

Thats near enough 54 Tonnes of lead ore mined from Slaley!

Where did all that come from?

Either that figure of 203 loads is incorrect, or there's a lot of Slaley that we don't know about.

 

[robjones]

At 468 lbs of galena to a cubic foot, 118,755 lbs of pure ore (no gangue) = 254 cubic feet of void= 9.4 cubic yards of void. Even if you double or quadruple  this cubic yardage to allow for gangue, it still could be one small stope or a series of very small stopes.