I think this is halfway to being a valuable artefact now.

[photo]Smallcleugh-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-75940[/photo]

Its a valid opinion Rick but somewhere in Wales there is a "DEB 1954"
A lot of people would be upset if it were to be scrubbed out.

For those not in the know its David Euan Bick

Is that not sentiment rather than historic value?

By all means autograph a rebuild or dig, like Mr Norpex (strange name that) but inscriptions added after the mine closed are, to my mind at least, vandalism whether done 60 years or 6 minutes ago.

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I think this is halfway to being a valuable artefact now.

[photo]Smallcleugh-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-75940[/photo]

Halfway to being an anonymous pile of rust, more like.

Halfway to being an anonymous pile of rust, more like.

Might give it some flavour at least...

Its all something I cannot make my mind up about.
But first, apologies, my last posting should have read:
"David Ewart Bick”.

Anyway, to move on. I personally hate and loath anything 'spray cans', pointless direction markings, indecipherable 'tags', and the kind of so called art that I personally associate with a brain way out on some kind of substance. However there are may places underground that become a sort of generally accepted place to discreetly add ones initials and the date. I look at such places with interest and the dates people have been coming in.
Its very much for me a mixed feelings thing, I hate in Box where original inscriptions have been covered over by modern stuff, and look at the newspaper cutting of the sinking of the Graf Spee in Cwmorthin covered by carbide writing.
I do however derive some amusement from some of it. The white paint splash in Box that took on the outline of a ghost and then someone added the eyes etc, coming out after along day underground I look out for it. And the "I love Kerry Hall", how long has that been there, what happened in the end?
I use them as waypoints I suppose.

Final apology, for taking this off thread
:lol:

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A few years ago we sunk a shaft to access some old sand workings for the local authority in Castleford, W.Yorks.The mines were detected by an extensive drilling program after some subsidence problems.
We sunk our shaft, accessed the mine and explored and surveyed. Once you got a feel for the layout, it was obvious that there had originally been an adit from a nearby hillside. In the hardened mud near to what had been the entrance were the initials CUBC and the date 1936. Our council man later told us that the initials stood for Castleford Urban District Council. So it seemed the council had been there before!

I regularly spray paint arrows and markings on mine walls but then, like Terry, I am paid to.

In general though, Tamarmole has it about right.

I got through two large tins of spray paint last winter track laying underground in the George & Charlotte! Given that this is legally a working mine and this is what I am paid to do, not a problem in my view.

It's all a matter of time. Some statues in Egypt have graffiti ranging from Roman times to the 18th century "Grand Tour" which is now regarded as important history.

I visited the amphitheatre at El Djem (Tunisia) a few years ago and some parts of it are much marked with graffiti left by British and Commonwealth troops in 1943; oddly enough there is little or no German graffiti. The preserved Reichstag building contains preserved Russian graffiti from 1945.

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I think a point worth making is the difference between the generally discreet initials and graffiti of the past, and the massive and often senseless paint spray daubings of modern times.
A good 'reading room' is about half way up the slope of the Farleigh Down railway conveyor passage. A lot of wartime stuff there, but all of it in small discreet writing.
The big contrast to this is the modern stuff near the entrance. It may well give an intimidating atmosphere to the place for some people, I have to admit that for me it carries associations with violence and drug culture.
I wonder if the people responsible buy their paint or steal it from somewhere.

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It's all a matter of time. Some statues in Egypt have graffiti ranging from Roman times to the 18th century "Grand Tour" which is now regarded as important history.

Maes Howe (neolithic passage tomb in Orkney) contains Viking rune inscriptions.....those Northern vandals.....:lol::lol:

Presumably the urge to leave one's name behind is a small quest for immortality.

I've done it twice in mines in my misguided youth. Once was in chalk at the far end of the lowest level off a 600ft shaft. The other time was when I encouraged a friend with a belt-mounted carbide generator (that dates the event doesn't it?) to crank it up to leave a soot inscription at the furthest end of newly entered workings seven pitches from the entrance (though on subsequent trips we pushed almost twice as far). Both were with dates as the locations seemed so remote that surely virtually no one would ever reach them after us (the pridefulness of youth!). As it happens, I'm pretty certain that no one has been back to those locations - so my embarassing graffiti has probably not been detected ... so far.

I've left hundreds of reasonably discreet dull red dots on ceilings to mark survey stations so I could return to add passage detail on to a fixed framework, and to enable the surveys to be checked or extended from known and marked points. But only 1 inch diameter dots, never numbers or inscriptions.

I'll pardon a discreet inscription (preferably with a date) at the furthest end of some workings. But that is infinately different to the volume of spray can paint in some easily accessible workings such as parts of Box. That latter sort of painting I see no point in and find deeply depressing.

The most distressing graffiti is that which obscures features of genuine historic interest. Spaying over quarrymens' nineteenth century inscriptions in Box. Worst I've seen is the increasing damage to the Graf Spey and other newspaper cuttings in the caban in Cwmorthin since I first visited 30+ years ago - the perpetrators could never claim that they were unaware of the cuttings because they used to be splendidly legible. Cwmorthin is too good to ever be regarded as sacrificial even though it seems to have sort of assumed something of that role.

I don't do it myself, but I do like to come across a 'guest book' wall in a mine that has the names and dates of previous visitors, providing it is kept to one small section.

It's all a matter of time. Some statues in Egypt have graffiti ranging from Roman times to the 18th century "Grand Tour" which is now regarded as important history.

Maes Howe (neolithic passage tomb in Orkney) contains Viking rune inscriptions.....those Northern vandals.....:lol::lol:

In an example of synchronicity, I just happened across this:
http://www.strangehistory.net/2014/07/04/19855/ 
Maeshow is a fantastic place but the guide wasn't pleased when I wrote "Cat Bones Woz 'Ere" in 3 foot high letters in red spray paint inside it 😉

I believe organisations like EH & the NT use a rolling 50 year cut off for removal of graffiti.

It seems to me that this thread has digressed somewhat.
The work that gNick has done on bracing the HL on the Guddamgill junction is the sort of thing that will make Mine Exploration safer.
I think we can all help by moving blocks out the way on crawls, and squeezes, and if something does move then try and replace it carefully and safely, in such a way that it is not likely to come down on some other explorer.

Thanks for that John, but it's not safe yet!

It is a good point about picking up loose stuff, both where an area is moving and just to avoid silly trips. I have rebuilt a couple of dig walls now where stones get accidentally knocked off, not a problem - it happens, but no-one seems able to pick the things back up which means that after a while the dig wall disappears. :curse:

I remember from my climbing days that it was quite common for accidents to happen on the easy route down. With that in mind making the main routes as potentially incident free as possible is a GOOD THING (tm).

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When I first saw the Troggs' graffiti chambers in Wapping Mine I was absolutely blown away by the density of it all - this had gone beyond vandalism into art, though whether created with that intention I have no idea. But I can imagine what triggered most of the impulse to daub...

Anyway, that's still on my list for a full-on photographic documentation, as I think it's definitely dropped into the archaeology slot now. Will probably need panoramas to get it all in.

The cut off thing for maintaining graffiti in EHG and NT sites isn't hard and fast Alex.

I've been helping run the dig to open the Fan Bay deep shelter at Dover to the public. As a lot of locals will know, it and most other military stuff around Dover, was wide open from the end of the war until the early 70s when the council sealed most, they were then progressively reopened by a few enterprising diggers from about 1995 onwards.

We have been cleaning off all graff before 1983. The main points of interest being the original wartime doodles, especially those left by the men of RE Tunnelling Company (172 I think) who dug it.

Ther thirty year offset was something we decided on site and was then ratified by National Trust's curatorial team. I didn't get the impression they looked in a big book of rules before coming back to us.

John 🙂

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Fair enough, I think the 50 year thing is more an approximate principle rather than a rule in a book :)

1983 is quite generous, how do you deal with obviously modern but undated stuff?

Its a valid opinion Rick but somewhere in Wales there is a "DEB 1954"
A lot of people would be upset if it were to be scrubbed out.

For those not in the know its David Ewart Bick

I once dug out a collapsed adit entrance about 20 years ago. I thought that I would be the first person in the mine for a long time only to find "D Bick 196*" etched on the end in black soot from a carbide lamp. It's a valid piece of 'old' graffiti today :-)

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