mickyb
  • mickyb
  • 50.2% (Neutral)
  • Newbie Topic Starter
12 years ago
Is 1600 feet a reasonable depth for a pit shaft. My novel is going through its final proof and I am qurying this point. Anybody help?
Knocker
12 years ago
What era is your novel based? 1600 feet is entirely feasible from about 1830.
mickyb
  • mickyb
  • 50.2% (Neutral)
  • Newbie Topic Starter
12 years ago
It's actually set in 1906 in the Durham coalfield. thanks for the quick reply.
miner1985
12 years ago
Many shafts over 2000 feet by then (coal mines that is)
Knocker
12 years ago
"mickyb" wrote:

It's actually set in 1906 in the Durham coalfield. thanks for the quick reply.



By that time there were shafts in excess of 3000 feet (Williams Shaft at Dolcoath being a prime example), so I'd say you have no issues at all.
gNick
  • gNick
  • 50.2% (Neutral)
  • Newbie
12 years ago
Are there Durham shafts that deep?

Plenty of data on the Durham Mining Museum website but I can't get to it from work...
Don't look so embarrassed, it's a family trait...
LeeW
  • LeeW
  • 50.2% (Neutral)
  • Newbie
12 years ago
Any particular part of the Durham Coalfield? It's a fairly large one.
Some of the coastal shafts/concealed parts of the coalfield will be deep enough and were generally sunk late 1800s / early 1900s, so 1906 is in the earlier years (or during shaft sinking) for the coastal ones. I'm not sure of the deepest but Wearmouth was >1900ft deep

gNick Oddly I tried my link to DMM, but I appeared to have an old broken link. I've just gone back to www.dmm.org.uk and it worked fine.

The index to the mines (which includes the depths and other information):
http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/index.htm 

I went in a mine once.... it was dark and scary..... full of weirdos


When do I get my soapbox, I need to rant on about some b***cks
rikj
  • rikj
  • 50.2% (Neutral)
  • Newbie
12 years ago
If you go to the BGS (British Geological Survey) boreholes record viewer:

http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/boreholescans/home.html 

you can view scans of the shaft information. They give not only the overall depth, but the widths of the bands of coal. Some are in fathoms rather than yards or feet.

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