On the subject of big cats, I saw one in the Nenthead area around 18-20 years ago early in the morning. It was huge, a good eight feet including tail. the most striking bit was that it eyes were 8-10 inches apart.
When we met it sat in the grass for ten minutes or so and stared at me. after that I decided it was prudent to leave it too its own devices.
A similar looking cat was seen down near Slaggyford a week or so later.

Are you sure it wasn't a lion?

Seems a very large cat!

Mind you, it probably knew it would have ended up as a fireside rug had it tried anything clever :guns:

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His name was Mr Pringles, on account of his favourite snack.

I reckon he was there a year or so before someone took him out. He seemed to like it, and came to visit most of the groups I took through at the time. Quite tame, would take a bit of bread from my hand.

Mr Pringles/Mr Jingles.

I knew he went by both names, on account he was like the mouse from that movie.

I reckon he was in tax exile.

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On the subject of big cats, I saw one in the Nenthead area around 18-20 years ago early in the morning. It was huge, a good eight feet including tail. the most striking bit was that it eyes were 8-10 inches apart.
When we met it sat in the grass for ten minutes or so and stared at me. after that I decided it was prudent to leave it too its own devices.
A similar looking cat was seen down near Slaggyford a week or so later.

Are you sure it wasn't a lion?

Seems a very large cat!

Mind you, it probably knew it would have ended up as a fireside rug had it tried anything clever :guns:

Nah, lions were in Mosedale near Carrock
Tutti Brough used to keep a pair in the valley (Clarence and Henry I think)
As kids camping up there we always thought it was folklore but found out years later that it was true
He used to let them roam free occasionally until they ate a neighbours dog (allegedly)

With the big black cat at Nent, it took me 5 or 10 minutes to work out that it might be dangerous. When I first saw it it was on the road, I paced out the distance from where its tail was on the white line to where its head was and it was a good eight feet. It was how wide apart its eyes where that impressed me
It wasn't scared of me at all.
Most people dismissed it as bollox, apart from one of the keepers on the other side of the hill who looked seriously worried and I'm pretty sure he knew there was one on the lose

I wasn't the only one to have seen it but most people kept their mmouth firmly shut on the subject

A Peacock in the entrance to a welsh slate mine (no real mystery, someone down the road kept them), and an Otter in the same mine.

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I can confirm that I met a fox underground quite close to Godstone Main Series, we both turned and departed, the fox rather faster than me.

And a few years ago a mouse lived for several weeks about 250 metres into a Godstone mine. The habit of eating cake in the 'Diggers Cafe' probably aided its survival in total darkness.

Cows in Holly Bank Adit in the Manifold valley.
That's why it was gated (with Derbyshire key). The farmer was fed up with retrieving the dafter ones. They couldn't figure out how to turn round & get back out apparently.

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They couldn't figure out how to turn round & get back out apparently.

I have been known to struggle myself sometimes :lol:

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Various rodent footprints in Cwt y Bugail.

Water Vole's apparently.
I showed a picture of rodent footprints to a zoo-ologist type
they can happily navigate by scent marking and absolute darkness doesn't bother them at all.

I hope you're right, that's nicer than my reckoning of weasels or stoats. It seems an awful long way from the sorts of places I'd associate with water voles, but that probably just shows how little I know. and comparing photos on the web, they certainly do look right.

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I have a vague recollection of a story doing the rounds a few years back of someone meeting a bear in a silver mine - obviously not in the UK though.

Anyone else recall the details?

We found these footprints a long way into Cromford Sough a couple of years ago - my (inadvertent) welly-print at left for scale:

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fox and badger it would appear.

There is an owl in balleye mine in Matlock, down the climb to the left as you enter, then past the shaft with the big tank in it, but not down the tank level, go right at the climb down to the tank instead towards the van traverse and follow it to the coffin level where the ventilation pipes penetrate through the wall into the balleye quarry, he's hooting away from within one of the vents.

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Rabbits in Barbara Level in Gunnerside Gill - coming in via burrows in the limestone joints.
White fish in Carrs Level at Nenthead - presumably washed in via the backfilled rises.

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Seen quite a few frogs at the bottom of shafts.

Lots of traces of otters underground in the Tamar Valley. About twenty years ago a mate of mine came face to face with an otter in Devon & Courtney Consols in the Tavy valley.

Any number of bats, frogs, toads, lizards, sloworms and Vipers at the bottom of Five Buddles Shaft on Mendip. Compton Martin Ocher mine is one of the largest Lesser Horseshoe Bat winter hibernacularums in the area. One lesser in Sandford Levvy just the other day!

All of the animals mentioned above were only mildy pi$$ed off at our intrusion, not wild at all :angel:

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Hi,
Dare I mention adit alligators in Devon & Cornwall?
D.Send.

Chavs in Box Freestone Mine

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Hi Folks,
About those 'adit alligators' :
Way back in the late '60's, whilst opening up very old mine adits, we would often come across fallen timbers floating waterlogged downstream. brushing past them in thigh deep murky water, somebody shouted out, "watch out, there are more adit alligators coming down"! And the name stuck...
Regards,
D.Send.

Hi Folks,
About those 'adit alligators' :
Way back in the late '60's, whilst opening up very old mine adits, we would often come across fallen timbers floating waterlogged downstream. brushing past them in thigh deep murky water, somebody shouted out, "watch out, there are more adit alligators coming down"! And the name stuck...
Regards,
D.Send.

Adit alligator, I like that! :lol:

I have a big cat story. I was in Drws Y Coed and decided to go for a bit of a wander through the valley while the others went into a sheepy soup.

I was merrily walking along when in the distance just a bit before Drws Y Coed mine itself I saw what seemed like a huge black cat slinking its way around some big boulders. I was always a bit of a doubter when it came to big cat stories but now, hmmm, maybe.
Of course it could just have been a very big house cat but it really did seem like a massive cat. Who knows! 😉 So maybe there IS something in big cats using lesser visited adits/mines.

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Adit alligator, I like that! :lol:

:thumbsup:

evolutionary cousin of the Crosscut Crocodile :smartass:

MARK

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