A Couple of Mines

A couple of quick mining trips to report before the New Year is out.

8/12/12 West Mine, Alderley Edge

An RRCPC trip with a Derbyshire Caving Club member, Nigel, kindly showing us round some of the extensive Alderley Edge Copper Mines. We spent about 4 hours underground (with a few minutes in Engine Vein) looking round an absolute maze of passages. As far as I could make out, West Mine was made up of 3 horizontal levels with various climbs, shafts and ramps connecting them. But I might be wrong...! There weren't too many mining artifacts left, but we did see some impressive vivid blue copper deposits where water had seeped onto the passage walls. We also saw a  mine shaft which  features in part of Alan Garner's Wierdstone of Brisingamen (a childhood favourite) - a good bit of trivia!

Engine Vein is a separate mine and, although it's less extensive, it looked very impressive and would warrant a return trip when we have more time.

24/12/12 Robin's Shaft Mine

Kathryn derigging the main shaft

Kathryn and I did some yuletide caving in the south of the Peak District. Robin's Shaft Mine consists of a 100m deep shaft inclined at about 45-60 degrees, leading to a small amount of natural cave at the bottom. It's an interesting SRT exercise to get down the shaft, but not too much to see at the bottom. A fine way to spend a very rainy Christmas Eve though! 2 hrs T/U.