I'm a gold plated Muppet!

I got behind in keeping my bibliography database up to date hence missed the excellent BM 91.

Anyway, its a big help with interpretation. Puzzle is what is shown as Providence Engine Shaft in their photo is the overgrown one, not the one on the other bank with the rising main.

Will have a proper read tomorrow, I have only just got in and need to get some food on.

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A few more points.
First, this is worth a look:
http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepath.htm 

Everyone seems to use Google Earth, latitude and longitude, no thanks. The above one gives map on the left, sat on the right with a roving pointer giving OS GB 8 figure map references.

Interpretation of sites can be very difficult but is helped I feel, by a general understanding of pumping and pitwork. This is where old works such as "Taylor on Pumping",Michell and Letcher, Collins, Phillips & Darlington 1875 prove invaluable. Not to mention good old Bradford Barton.

Wheelpits can be some distance away from shafts they pumped with complex power trains with angle bobs and offsets, with the possibility of a bob pit being mistaken for a shaft.

I will have to take another detailed look at the place.
Thing about the shaft with the rising main is that it looks like a duck and it quacks, if you get the drift.

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Thing about the shaft with the rising main is that it looks like a duck and it quacks, if you get the drift.

Is it possible to drop anything down the rising main?

Thing about the shaft with the rising main is that it looks like a duck and it quacks, if you get the drift.

Is it possible to drop anything down the rising main?

I seem to remember rocks in it.
It appears that there is another shaft, as I said flooded, at the back. Thought occurred that this could be a bob pit, but the ground in between has no holding down bolts for balance bob fulcrum plate. I could try plumbing the flooded shaft.

Need to take another look.

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Is it possible to drop anything down the rising main?

I've just been to see this place today, the rising main is only 2ft until filled with rocks, with a flooded shaft about 8ft to water level next to it.

I am up at the Nent now and been over today. Metal Band is worth a look, remains of a crusher and wheelpit. Stone arched adit is deep in silt inside and probably leads to a collapse from surface, I got out.
There is an adit crosscut in limestone by the river, cuts 2 lodes the second being in bad ground and timbered. Has bad air and gas and very wet as well.

I might take another look later in the week, see what else I can get into.:devil:

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I am back home now and recovering.

After a lot of examination of the area and a very educational couple of hours yesterday with the local expert on the area I can confirm the following.

The engine shaft with the rising main was pumped by a waterwheel, what I incorrectly identified as the mounting for a steam engine was in fact the balance bob mounting, the structure immediately behind it is the waterheel 'pit'.
I was completely thrown initially because all the wheelpits I have seen before have what I would call 'cushioning timbers' with the through bolts passing vertically through both so as to make a 'sandwich' of the masonry. Also they are true 'pits' in that they are at least partially sunk into the ground. Apparently in the north Pennines they followed a completely different pattern.
I have no doubt about it being a wheelpit as there is a flooded trench between it and river which would be part of the outflow channel.

The shaft on the opposite bank is 'Old Engine Shaft', pumping methology a bit conjectural but I would say that this was the site of the steam engine.

The masonry lined square 'hole', I dont think that this was the shaft, there is a filled in area which is at the same horizon as the surrounding spoil and has immediately adjacent what to me is an obvious bob pit. What the 'masonry pit' is I can only guess, maybe a manway shaft, or something to do with a steam engine? More questions.
Old plans show the shaft as named above, the square pit as "Old Engine", no word "Shaft" included, make up your own minds.

Slightly further up the track going towards Dunn Fell and over on the right is a blocked up level which is Troutbeck Foot level, totally collapsed about 10 metres in. Troutbeck level higher up is similar, as is Netherhearth up on the right towards the Moorhouse bothy.

The only underground in that area is the level previously mentioned, which is not part of Metal Band but Hood Crag.

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