we were at the back end of whapping mine this morning when we heard and felt a big rumble
i was nearer to it and it went on for about 10s bri was in a dead end and said it felt/heard like a train going by in box
sounded like big rocks falling to me and between us and the entrance so we left without exsploring any more and looked for fresh rocks but we couldnt see any and the entrence was as normal
dont noe wher it was so be careful

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That might have been something coming down in Royal mine, which isn't that far away - I'm told that one's horrendously unstable these days and has a habit of dropping transit van sized blocks from its roof..... 😮

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didnt know it connected to wapping cumberland.
it was definatly a fall very close to were i was,but didnt want to go looking for it so soon after the fall.

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Its not connected but its so close you would feel it.... This happened to me and some mates when there was a fall in Royal (in the mid 90's I think?), If I'm remembering correctly someone was killed in Royal or another mine close by not long after we were in Wapping. I sure they were crushed in Royal by a large block.... I apologise if i've got this wrong.
We were in Cumberland cavern (near Grand Piano) and could not get out that way... so like you we went carefully back but found literally no change so we stayed in and carried on. The sound was like a short rumble and with a massive end thud/ vibration, it had us going though 😮

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where you climb up out of wapping into cumberland you go through a small level and into the "drop Zone" the grand piano area, over to the left into a small stope we used to see flowers put on a bank of muck. dont know if thats where the person was killed ? Maybe the fall you heard was at the end of sream passage where you climb up into upper levels that is a place of big headaches if it starts, had one or two on my hands in the past. Different to the days when I used to go in when Barton & Banks worked it for spar, it was ok then but still the odd fall from high up near the roof, which is quite close to the surface in places. holds good memeories for me over the last 60 yrs. Spent a lot of time in there and Cumberland taking candles down for tourists to find their way out when they reached the bottom. brill.

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The death i'm on about was Royal mine I think (1993 approx).... I remember as we had stopped going in years before as it was very unstable (and had sewage?) and I remember I had a row with another local group of real novices determined to go and dig out the entrance to get in. Around two weeks later I sure someone died in there in a crawling through a narrow area when he was crushed by a block and pinned....

As for Wapping I remember some small falls... its still a great mine and one of the first I ever went in inthe early 80's.

I loved the climb up the stopes to Cumberland.... I remember taking other novices in from Cumberland and at the top of the 4th/5th stope seeing their faces go "we're going down there?"..... even if it wasn't that bad really.... happy days indeed!

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I remember royal mine working, Derbyshire stone worked it, I used to live in one of the houses just obove the mine we had a shaft in our garden. when they blasted everything in the house shook, but nobody bothered. I can tell alot about that area..eg..going into the mine in a tub rattling around till I got to the face was given a few xls and walked back out. used to make bottle bombs with some of the carbide.mmmm...I was only 5 years old. ..health and safety would be interested now I`m sure. ..good old days.

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I would love to have seen it back then up there.... it was fascinating in the 80's.

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The death i'm on about was Royal mine I think (1993 approx).... I remember as we had stopped going in years before as it was very unstable (and had sewage?) and I remember I had a row with another local group of real novices determined to go and dig out the entrance to get in. Around two weeks later I sure someone died in there in a crawling through a narrow area when he was crushed by a block and pinned....

That's partly why it's now shut, and partly as the only entrance still open is in Gulliver's Kingdom. I did ask John Barnatt about the place, his response is that it's one of the few Peak mines he really would recommend everyone stays out of - He did an inspection at the owner's request a few years back and found the place to be a) horrendously unstable with the aforementioned large blocks ready to drop all over the place and b) difficult to find the way out of, even with a map.
I'll stick with my original guess that there's been a collapse in the Royal-Hopping-Tear Breeches complex somewhere....

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Was I right re the fatality? anything you can recall re the circumstances... just for interest sake?
I went in that system in the 80's and it wasn't too clever then..... and it was a jumble to navigate!

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Minerat - If I remember, didn't Banks and Barton have one of their workmen killed when spar mining in the Matlock Bath/Cromford area? They also had a near miss on a shaft on Low Mine, Bonsall in the 1950's, Frank Barton (from Youlgreave) was being wound down the shaft, the person winding him couldn't hold Frank's weight, he fell to the bottom of the shaft, was injured and had to rescued by the Fire Service (picture in the Bonsall book published in 2006).

After visiting Royal mine in the early 1950's when Derbyshire Stone was working it (weren't they also working Jacob's mine?) we decided it was far too dicey and left well alone. A caving friend was one of the first on the scene at the fatal accident in Royal mine in the early 1990's, and again at the fatal accident about three to four years ago of the Pegasus caver who was on a dig at the top of the Via Gellia, it really shook her up.

Yes mate, a friend of mine j..d,,,,,. was killed at cromford court mine ( I think thats what they called it) its above cromford court towards balleye. very steep inclined mine dodgy place went in a few times. 14 years old, with bullseye torch...mad or what. they bulldozed it in after that. then worked one at the top of the steps from masson mill. :thumbsup:

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after they retired Joe ended up owning silverband mine in cumbria, owned the crushing mill up via gellia and Frank used to drive him everywhere in a roller. would have liked their archives from the old bank vaults in matlock bath which was their office. do you know anything about a mine in the back of old hogkinsons pub there.

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I knew it existed at back of Hodgkinsons but as for detail i've never seen any! I will enquire, wouldn't mind knowing myself!

EDIT, did you ever get into the level behind and above the Tribes Mission (as I know it), seemed like a sough to me, it was blocked about 50 feet in from memory... any ideas?

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thats the one at the top of the steps from masson mill, last time I was in it wasn`t blocked some rubbish from a shaft part way in, there is a few shafts in the wood on right of mine as you look at it, there used to be a mine 20ft from our front door when I was a kid (5) but people put their rubbish down it, seem to recall the pdms had a go at it some time ago, its in upperwood.we call the tribes mission cromford court by the way.

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Minerat - Cromford Court (that was the name of the New Tribes Mission property before they bought it in 1979 or thereabouts), yes, thats where Banks and Barton were working when the fatal accident occurred, I'd forgotten the name of it, I knew it was close on the Mining Liberty Boundaries of the Matlock and Cromford Liberties. It was also where the bodies of the two murdered teenagers from Cromford were found hidden in late 1978, Keith Mellor from Bonsall was then opencasting on the site. Derbyshire Cave Rescue were helping search the area with the police and found them.

Iclok - Back in the early 1980's, one weekend we dined at Hodgkinson's Hotel, it had changed hands, the earlier proprietor was a right grumpy unsocialable old man. We got chatting about the mines of the area and suddenly the new owners said "we have a lead mine that we use as our cellar, would you like to look at it?" Two of us being semi-retired cavers jumped at the chance. It's at the back of the property, (from memory) when you walk through the front doors you carry straight on and there is a doorway in the back wall. We entered and stood in quite a largish cavity with a passage continuing into the hillside, we didn't explore any further, it was being used as a bottle cellar. Very interesting, got me intrigued, but I don't know anymore details or the name of the mine. Perhaps you could call in and innocently get talking about it, alternatively perhaps a PDMHS member would have more details? If no luck, being as I'm a member of PDMHS, I'll put an appeal in the Newsletter for information about it if you would like me to.

I will go and ask, then let you know.....

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I'm sure I've heard mention of mines used as cellars in that area before - I'll try asking Terry Worthington and Jim Rieuwerts what they know.

You can still get into various workings , Barton & Banks' adit above Masson Mill is open, Carnhill Wife sough can be crawled up for a fair distance before becoming choked with inwash from either sparring or quarrying, there's also a nameless pipe working that you can drop into and a few other small holes I've seen up there that don't go very far.

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when we used to go in Dev mine there was a spiral which went down and down only went so far but !!!!!! There used to be a working behind the temple hotel, worked by mr bird I think.
I remember the temple mine working, they used to empty the tubs off the track into waggons.. the whole of that wood and the "pali royal" the old royal pavillion, was my playground including the mines and the "romantics" which were strange shaped rock formations. ....such a good part of my life. there used to be a mine running through balleye quarry which we used to go in when I was 13 or so one day we found sticks of dynamite on the floor near some drill holes, we never went in again !!

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Devonshire is still open and is still one of my favourites.... took many a novice there and it was my first mine. We used to go in Pong Tor.... Sorry.... Long Tor avec Road silt... it stank in summer. I used to like the passage with the rails and the staircase! Getting an urge to go see it now......

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