With a little less than a week free in which to take my two boys away, there was a choice of Mendip, South Wales or Derbyshire. The popular vote was to return to Magpie Mine and have a short break exploring Derbyshire again.
AS only PDMHS members can book use of the cottage, and not having renewed our membership from September last year, a hasty late membership renewal (is 11 months late a new record?) was on the cards. With the cheque sent off, I rang Mave the PDMHS bookings person, and got ourselves booked in, explaining that the 'cheque was in the post'.
A good run up on Tuesday, and we were settled into the old Agent's Cottage by early evening. Planning the week was quite easy - the lads knew the places they wanted to visit again, and I had a few sites in mind too, to get underground.
🔗Magpie-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39252[linkphoto]Magpie-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39252[/linkphoto][/link]
The Peak District Mining Museum was Wednesday's first trip. In two hours you can go round the museum, Temple Mine, and lurk in the tut shop, and just get back to the car before the parking ticket expires.
The whole set up is run by PDMHS. Our trip was timed to start at 12 noon, and 17 of us assembled at the museum reception to meet our guides. These seemed to be a couple of students with summer jobs, but were excellent nonetheless, despite the lad actually running his first public tour, under the supervision of the girl guide.
It was explained that we would walk for five minutes, across the main street, and up a footpath and road to the mine entrance. We all assembled at the mine entrance, and were handed helmets to wear, and given the obligatory Health and Safety notices. We had a competently led tour around this 20th century fluorspar mine, being shown minerals, flowstone, ore chute, miners' tools and so on. The uses of fluorspar were related to us - toothpaste, PTFE, CFC's, electronics and so on, but none of these uses were current when the mine was being worked as far as I know, and I silently added "flux for steel making" in my mind this being probably the real reason why the mine was worked!
The invitation from the guide to touch the "slimey flowstone" rather grated in my mind, and I was pleased to see my lads didn't take up the offer - it seems my telling them that touching formations is a no-no may have paid off. After the mine, we were all invited to pan for fool's gold in the wooden tubs near the entrance, and this was eagerly done by the boys, each getting a nice little bag of small pyrite for their efforts.
The weather had bucked up a bit after the tut shop browsing session, so we drove off to do a bit of wild mine-exploring. Mouldridge Mine seemed a safe bet, and more or less in keeping with what we had been looking at in Temple Mine. I am using any underground trip at the moment as an excuse to get my camera and flash-guns out, and so it was this time. The mine itself is quite tame, but has some good opportunities for easy photographs.
Finding and identifying a number of minerals in the walls is also quite straight-forward and kept the boys occupied. When we got back to surface, the sun was fully out, and an amazing sky just had to be photographed. 5 minutes later, the rippled clouds had disappeared.
🔗Mouldridge-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39261[linkphoto]Mouldridge-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39261[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Mouldridge-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39259[linkphoto]Mouldridge-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39259[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Mouldridge-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39258[linkphoto]Mouldridge-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39258[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Mouldridge-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39257[linkphoto]Mouldridge-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-39257[/linkphoto][/link]
I was hoping that the engine house at Middleton Top on the Cromford and High Peak Railway might be open, but had no way to find out. So on Thursday morning we drove down on the off chance, to find it firmly closed up. The visitor centre was open, however, and we watched a short promo for a DVD on the railway, which had some nice shots of the inclines being worked. A picnic lunch in the nearby garden set us up for the afternoon trip to Jug Holes. Another photo opportunity, and a good cave to explore when you are finding your feet and starting to use your own judgement when exploring, rather than just following dad's instructions. This is a pretty muddy place, and we came out quite soggy; Beni had somehow managed to completely smother his spectacles with mud. I'm not sure he saw an awful lot of the cave after a while!
🔗Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39263[linkphoto]Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39263[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39264[linkphoto]Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39264[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39265[linkphoto]Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39265[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39266[linkphoto]Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39266[/linkphoto][/link]
🔗Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39267[linkphoto]Jug-Holes-Fluorite-Mine-User-Album-Image-39267[/linkphoto][/link]
That was it, really, for underground activities. On Friday, we walked in the upper end of Lathkilldale, following the river to the resurgence caves at the head, and exploring Lathkill Head Cave in tee-shirts with a hand torch, within sight of the entrance. We walked downstream to the remains of Mandale Mine. This is a really unspoilt valley and always a delight to explore.
On Saturday we went back to Middleton to visit the National Stone Centre which had hardly any visitors. A number of small to medium abandoned quarries have been set up as geology and nature trails, which were reasonably interesting, with old coral reefs, limestone beds, and ancient cenotes (sea caves) in evidence. Some impressive crinoids are on display on one exposed slab. A small visitor centre explains the various use for stone through the ages - it is very Palaeozoic-centric, with only a brief mention of the stones of the south-eastern half of the country, but an interesting place even so, and free to boot.
Five minutes' walk away down the High Peak Trail is the Steeple Grange Light Railway, a short narrow gauge line laid on the route of a standard gauge branch of the former Cromford and High Peak Railway to the Middleton limestone quarry. One of the two battery locomotives they were running was of underground interest, being designed to run through small bore sewers, and the second was used in a steel works. The passengers are carried in stock rescued from old mines where they used to take miners to the face. Another point of mine-related interest was the quarry at Middleton that the line used to serve. When the overburden in the quarry became too inconvenient to remove, the stone was worked underground until not so long ago. The Middleton Limestone Mine ran right through the hill, and was worked on the pillar and stall method, using large diesel trucks to move the stone around.
The short holiday finished with a look around the water mill at Rowsley, between Darley Dale and Cromford. This is the only surviving working watermill using roller milling (rather than the older traditional stone-grinding). The whole building is full of working machines and drive belts, and a delight to look round. All the machinery is powered by two turbines in the mill race. All the mill's electricity is generated from the turbines as well.
I don't think we wasted a single minute of the time we had, and we wished we had another four days holiday, but this will have to wait for another year.