Lathkill Dale in Flood

[Pete K]

Thought some of you might be interested to see Lathkill Dale today. Very wet with water coming and going places it should not be.
There were loads of little springs bubbling up all along the path, and some much larger ones. Water was sinking in one of the fanced off slumps and had nearly filled Bateman's Shaft!
Lots more pics on my Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/peakinstruction/albums/72157705994727631

[pwhole]

Wow - brilliant. That slump is an old shaft, I think, and it's probably pretty loosely filled to judge by the video!

[AR]

Quite a change from a fortnight ago - at that point, all the hollows around the wheelpit were dry and there was scarcely anything coming out of Mandale Sough. I'm guessing Powder House Shaft is resurging again?

The slumps are collapses onto the old London Lead Company pumpway, which looks like it was driven using a tufa bed for its roof. I had a  proper look a few years back before the new fences went in but it's too choked to get into.

Edit - I got some good footage a while ago of water going into Sough Forefield Shaft (the one with the Clwyd cap by the path) when it was behaving like a giant plughole!

[Pete K]

The slumps are collapses onto the old London Lead Company pumpway, which looks like it was driven using a tufa bed for its roof. I had a  proper look a few years back before the new fences went in but it's too choked to get into.

Ah, I wondered if it was the line of the sough under there. Good to know.
Not sure about the Powder House Shaft, where is that? I didn't go further up than Bateman's today as I need to get to Holmebank for another DCA job.

[AR]

It's not the sough, it's a different level - see the plan in Jim R's Lathkill Dale mines book, it's the 'old level' shown on the 1826 plan. Powder House shaft is on the opposite side of the river to Bateman's and is the next shaft upstream on the sough, just beyond the dam in the sough - the powder house itself is the square structure near the bridge while the shaft is adjacent to it, under a manhole cover. I'm told that there was an attempt to pump it out in the 1970s, which was abandoned after a day's work resulted in a drop of a few feet - the team reckoned the water they were pumping into the river was getting straight back into the sough!

[Pete K]

I had to pop back to measure up some steel for the DCA today and took a quick run up to Bateman's House.

Bateman's Shaft 15/3/19:
Lathkill Dale in Flood 15/3/19 by Pete Knight, on Flickr
Bateman's Shaft 17/3/19:
Lathkill Dale in Flood 17/3/19 by Pete Knight, on Flickr
It's certainly got a bit more water in the shaft.

This slumped shaft on the 15th:
Lathkill Dale in Flood 15/3/19 by Pete Knight, on Flickr
Was now a slowly whirling area of static water on the 17th:
Lathkill Dale in Flood 17/3/19 by Pete Knight, on Flickr

[Pete K]

[markpot]

Poweder house shaft is interesting.we dropped it not to long back along with batemans .i wonder if the dam in lathkill sough along with the water backing up from the London lead compay pumpway has an impact on the water level in powderhouse shaft and it acting as a resurgence.the passage size down stream from batemans may have an impact on the back up of water. Pete,did you have a poke in the adit behind batemans?just wondered how far up the internal shaft the water level is ?

[Pete K]

I didn't go further than the gate to Bateman's Adit, but the 2 shafts are linked. I expect the water would be at a similar level. Scott from TSG went to test the new BP anchors in the shaft the other night and did not get far.

[markpot]

This area is really interesting. Thanks for the photos pete👍.ive spent ALOT of time down here pushing a few leads recently,mines and natural .The interaction beetween the natural and mined is really intersting .big up for the anchor install👊.look forward to checking them next week.

[markpot]

I just wondered if there was a similar "push"of water up the shaft in batemans adit given the reduction in passage size downstream.?

[AR]

Poweder house shaft is interesting.we dropped it not to long back along with batemans .i wonder if the dam in lathkill sough along with the water backing up from the London lead compay pumpway has an impact on the water level in powderhouse shaft and it acting as a resurgence.the passage size down stream from batemans may have an impact on the back up of water. Pete,did you have a poke in the adit behind batemans?just wondered how far up the internal shaft the water level is ?

The sough dam is pretty certainly responsible for Powder House Shaft turning into a fountain in very wet conditions. There's likely a choke downstream somewhere that is responsible for the backing up in Batemans  and for the sough sumping even in dry weather. The LLC pumpway water may not go into the sough, it appears to resurge on the other side of the river just below the aqueduct.