There is a lot to be said for the good old days; twenty odd years ago when I started mine exploration no one seemed to mind too much if rivers turned bright orange from time to time (not that I ever did you understand).

Recent years have seen an unprecedented influx of dickheads into mine exploration (present company excepted) - I was appalled by the condition of Box when I visited earlier this year and I do wonder how long it will be before the CRTT claims its first fatality.

On the positive side I do like LED lighting - wouldn't go back to Oldhams. With reservations the interweb is a massive plus, particularly AN.

In contrast to the dickheads I have had the privilege of exploring mines with a number of splendid young chaps (and chapesses) so, dickheads aside, the future of mine exploration looks to be in good hands.

There is still lot to be found - so hopefully the best is yet to come. :thumbsup:

On balance I'd suggest late 1970s:

* A sound body of literature had been published in the early and mid 1970s alerting mine explorers to previously obscure sites, but there was little detailed information on underground detail so there was more thrill of true exploration.

* SRT had arrived, enabling straightforward access to deeper shafts.

* Oldhams had largely replaced carbide, providing decent lights (granted LEDs are superior but we used to cope perfectly well with Oldhams in the olden days!)

* Mine exploration was still largely off-radar and there were minimal access issues (with local exceptions) and very few shafts had been capped.

* Many sites were still largely unexplored underground (especially deeper shafts), so there was the genuine excitement of exploring workings un-entered since abandonment.

I started serious mine exploration in the early 1980s which was a little too late for this 'best' era. Nevertheless, even in the mid and late 1980s it was still readily possible to be the first to descend deep shafts since abandonment.

I would go with Graigfawr, the 70's.
We still had a mining industry then, both coal and metalliferous.
You could get trips into working mines relatively easily without all the H & S worries and commercial pressures that prevent visits nowadays.
I first went underground as a schoolboy in the late 60's and was hooked. Being in Derbyshire, underground was often mines rather than c*ves. In fact I found it so interesting I applied to the NCB for a student apprenticeship and they kindly paid me a salary and expenses for 8 years while they trained me as a mining engineer.
You certainly can't get hobby training like that nowadays.....

... I applied to the NCB for a student apprenticeship and they kindly paid me a salary and expenses for 8 years while they trained me as a mining engineer.
You certainly can't get hobby training like that nowadays.....

I know. I looked into this in detail a while back, and I simply could not *afford* to do it. The missus was up for moving down south, but financially, it couldn't work.

On topic...

I would have liked the easier access you had back then, but I wouldn't like not having the decent SRT kit, lights or mapping resources that we have now.

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People should remember that Oldham lamps WERE state of the art! No one thought any different, there was nothing "better"
The FX2 came along and was a small battery but with less light than an Oldham.
For BIG slate there were 12v halogen lamps from Halfords and a motorcycle battery.
The best SRT harness and belay / lamp belt was made by Caving Supplies. With Petzl assenders.

Which was the best decade for mine explorers?

In the 60, 70s and 80s there were more recently closed sites and decades less deterioration, vandalism and collapse... And possibly fewer access issues.

So, who did have it the best and when?

Do you mean the 1560s by any chance? If so I'll take then!

All those lovely very early wooden railways & what have you just like the illustrations in Agricola & by Heinrich Gross etc. Very different to anything you're going to find nowadays.

OK :smartass:
I will take the 1870s
High point of production all over the country.
Luverly Lead and Copper mines to visit with many steam engines.
Wales ,Cornwall and all over to visit.
Problems, very few made roads or railways.

1570?, if you turned up with your LED lamp and digital camera you would have been burned as a witch.

Present day for me. There's still boat loads of long forgotten mines that are waiting to be found and explored

Dead right, but you have to work for it.

Makes it sweeter when it pays off though.

1570?, if you turned up with your LED lamp and digital camera you would have been burned as a witch.

The last Elizabethan mines I visited were in the Caldbecks.

I would not be too certain that much is likely to have changed in the last 450 years! 😮

Without a doubt, we've got it the best now.

We still have access to the old boys who recall the old days and enrich us with their anecdotes, we've got bright lamps and decent SRT apparatus.

Most importantly, we've got information, we've got easily transferable information. People like Hamilton Jenkin and Cyril Noall had to fight the record office, seek plans from the mining record office and chase every bit of information. We have amazon for buying even the rarest book, all the abandonment plans, geological maps and everything a researcher could possibly need down the road. Rather than taking tracings of maps, you can take digital photographs and manipulate them in the comfort of your own home.

We may be the wrong side of a few mine capping campaigns and a fair few places have collapsed, but there are often ways in and determined diggers always romanticise about what lies the other side.

I resent the missed opportunity not to go down the Wheal Jane affected water table areas when they were pumping and I barely remember seeing the wheels revolving at the Crofty shafts. In a way, I think we are in an island of inaction in Cornwall and hopefully, things will resume and old magical places will be pumped out after decades or even centuries of being flooded.

The information aspect and proper light put now in the lead.

You can't see the big stope in wheal jane with an oldham. With a Roy Fellows lamp, you can light it up like Tesco.

In the 80s I used to take a car fog light and car battery when needing to light up specially large slate mine chambers or metal mine stopes. The output was probably only slightly more than one of Roy's lamps!

For me it was 1971. I used to skive off school, catch the Midland Red to Derby, then onto Matlock Bath and walk up Clatterway. I had a Premier carbide lamp and ex NCB fibre helmet. I would go down any adit I could find. I did a couple of Youth Hostelling trips to Ilam Hall when I would try and get my friends to go into adits along the Manifold, happy days.

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In fact I found it so interesting I applied to the NCB for a student apprenticeship and they kindly paid me a salary and expenses for 8 years while they trained me as a mining engineer.
You certainly can't get hobby training like that nowadays.....

8 years! they do it in 4 now...and thats if you count the 1st year in industry as a trainee engineer. Mind you the 3 years study now cost what 8 years would have done

The difference, I suspect, is the final qualification. I am a mining engineer but also hold the MQB Manager's certificate which is what takes the extra time gaining all the required years of practical experience.
Also, you cannot sit the MQB exam until age 26 (or within some months of your birthday with permission).

Ah I just meant they call themselves mining engineer after 4 years! no idea what the score is working on a minesite in Oz, I suspect junior engineers will not be put through managers tickets until they have spent some time with one company. Didnt know about the age requirement.

Even in jest I cannot see anytime, pre the the nationalisation of the coal mines that the miners lives was anything but a very hard and short life!
In Scotland the coal miners could and were sold with the mine.
They were forbidden to leave the pit.
The life expectancy of the Northern Lead mine was around 50 years, even the smelters lived longer!
At least with the NCB there was a start on trying to improve conditions, and their working practices were slowly adopted by others

I dont know John.
I did quite a bit or research on my 'specialist' mine, Talybont, and was surprised to see how many of characters, including the notorious Joseph Fell, didn't live beyond 65.

Life expectancy was shorter then.

Nowdays we all live longer and get more out of life.

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Roy remember, Shakespeare writing in the late 1580's was stating 'a man's allotted span is three score years and ten'.
and yet these miners were lucky to see their mid fifties.
This is why the Kinnaird commision was set up to look into their life expectancy. 1862-64
Just checked up - they stated in their report the average life expectancy was 47.6 years, so if we had been employed as miners at that time only our sprits would be talking now!

Well I'm the three score years and ten in January, and knee getting better daily and be ready to go for black belt later in the year.

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