AR - Many thanks for letting me know this mineral application was approved by the Peak Park Planning Board. I no longer live nearby, so abstained from making any comments or objections, especially with the present economic situation in the country with the heavy loss of jobs. However, I remember the destruction and mess that was caused with the illegal opencasting (without planning consent - see my earlier postings about Tearsall) of Tearsall in the late 1970's early 1980's. It was an indiscrimminate rape of the countryside, with no consideration for the remains of old lead mine workings, artifacts, flora and fauna, or the public in the area. When the Peak Park Authority finally got down to sorting out planning consents for the legal extraction of fluorspar and associated gangue minerals the authority granted permission for 27 opencast sites on Bonsall Moor (I deposited the Peak Park paperwork shewing these sites on Bonsall Moor where planning permission was eventually granted, along with my records and those of my old caving friends with the Derbyshire Record Office in 2000 when I left Derbyshire). At the height of the extraction the situation was horrendous, once we counted at least twenty two heavy lorries driving across the Moor exiting and entering (spar was taken to two processing plants (1) Dresser Minerals at Rhyder Point above the Via Gellia and (2), Cavendish Mill at Stoney Middleton) no effort was made to clean mud off the road, I stopped in a lay-bye to let a laden lorry pass and my lwb Land Rover had mud up to it's hubs! The main road (Bonsall Lane) across the Moor and the unclassified highways leading off it, which gave access to a lot of these sites, is only single track with passing places, the lorry drivers drove like the clappers of hell, some even taking a short cut down through Bonsall which was illegal Thank goodness the Peak Park has now seen reason about getting sites reinstated these days, and hopefully supervises the extraction of the mineral i.e. fluorspar for which the planning consent has been granted. This site exits from the north onto Bonsall Lane at Brightgate, the lorry route between the site and Cavendish Mill goes westwards along this narrow, winding lane with passing places down to the main Ashbourne/Bakewell T junction, (incidently the line of an old turnpike and the old Port Way - hence Portaway mine at Elton which lies on the line of the ancient track). The rest of the route to the A6 then follows a very narrow, bendy, steep descending road, with a bad crossroads between Winster and Elton intersecting it, down to Hawley's Bridge and out to the A6 at Picory Corner.
I am not a newcomer to the Peak Park, I regularly walked, climbed and caved in it in my youth when if you used Youth Hostels as we did, one had to get there under one's own steam, i.e. cycling or walking - no motor cars or buses, not like today when they seem to be super hotels compared to the hostels of old. I was born in Derby, lived there for 31 years and the Peak District for 25 years. My ancestors came from the Peak i.e Ashford-in-the-Water, Youlgreave, Over Haddon, Bakewell, Bonsall, Cromford, Wirksworth, Tissington. Over the years I have seen the rural life in the Peak District and it's indigenous people eroded away by outsiders moving in, taking over their cottages, often for holiday cottages thus emptying the village of village life and customs because young people could not afford the high house prices and remain within the village,the consequence of this caused old trades and industries to die out. As you say Toadstone tourism has taken over as one of the main industries which is wrong -there is still a lot of quarrying.
I have spoken to my old spar mining friend whom I have known since 1956, many times about Tearsall. He comes from Elton is now 76 and has been sparring since he was 17, his two uncles were spar miners and one had a processing plant at Portaway mine. He's worked at many sites including Bonsall Moor, Tearsall, Jugholes, Low Mine, Masson Hill, and Moss Rake etc. etc.. He has always said that there is hardly any fluorspar, if any, at Tearsall, the main mineral found there is calcite. He always contends that the Peak Park was duped into believing that fluorspar was found at this site, in order for the owners to work the limestone and turn it into a limestone quarry (perhaps planning wouldn't then have been granted in the first instance) - much of the limestone quarried was transported eastwards to the sugar beet factories in Lincolnshire. He says that fluorspar was found at Ashover, Crich, Masson Hill but gave way to calcite the futher west one moved away from Masson Hill. When it was first opencasted we used to visit the site and found very large specimans of dogtooth calcite at Tearsall, we found very little evidence of fluorspar, the dark blue variety was found more in the centre of the Moor. My friend worked on Bonsall Moor (he was responsible for buying the two little dinosaur cranes which have been abandoned on the Moor)and with two partners he excavated the open rake that can be found on Bonsall Lees. White Low (where workings can be seen) further to the west on the Moor, is called White Low because of the high calcite content of the vein. If my friend is proved right and hardly any fluorspar deposits are found, will the Peak Park then stop the workings? It would be very interesting to know.
I remember in the 1950's with my club exploring the Tearsall mine before opencasting took place and destroyed the workings, (from memory) it was a walk in mine, with a series of low caverns connected to each other. Anyone interested in the history of this area can find further information in the Peak District Mines Historical Society's Bulletins:-
PDMHS Bulletin Vol. 1, No. 6; May, 1962 pp 3-14 "Tearsall and Dalefield Soughs, Wensley" by Nellie Kirkham;
PDMHS Bulletin Vol 5, No. 6; October, 1974 pp 373-382
"A survey pf a mine in Tearsall Rough, Wensley" by Roger Flindall.
PDMHS Bulletin Vol.12, No1, - a joint publication with the UK Journal of Mines and Minerals No.13 Autumn - Winter, 1993. pp 16-55 "The Minerals of the Peak District of Derbyshire" by Dr. Trevor D. Ford, Dr. William A. S. Sarjeant and Michael E. Smith. pp 29-31 Fluorite
The webpage containing the Public Engagement Report that was produced after the public consulation held in Darley Dale is:- www.tearsall.co.uk/downloads/Community Engagement Report.pdf If people don't attend public consultations then they only have themselves to blame if they are inconvenienced afterwards. We attended the public consulation a few years ago in Matlock when it was proposed to build a Sainsbury's Supermarket in Megdale quarry, it's a good job we did as they proposed building directly above the line of Seven Rakes sough, and had no idea of it's existance.
Finally I am pleased to hear that Milldam is reopening. Nick Hardy the manager took three of us down in his Toyota pick-up in the early 1990's. I understood that when he parked up we were beneath Black Hole mine, an interesting trip.