In about 1975 I was exploring for adits to the Bincliffe mines in the Manifold valley when I came across a small (2' wide 4' high) hole that went on for about 400 yards before a fall blocked the way. there were 2 side branchs, and a shaft in the floor just before the fall. This was further North from where the known adits are, about 500 yards South of Beeston Tor, and about 100' above the river.
I went back a few years later to look for it, but the growth of bushes had covered the area, There was no mention of this in the PDHMS journal covering bincliffe.

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Many thanks for your reply Historytrog and I am sorry to hear of the loss of Sougher, is there a tribute or obituary anywhere on the site?

From the information and maps available on this forum I now know that the large shaft with I used to drop stones down to such great effect was the Bullestree new engine shaft 1858 shown on the Barmasters map included in the soughtail@cromford thread.

Thanks also for the information on the fillpurse mine. I recollect the main shaft was about 1.5m diameter and infilled to about 8m deep from the top, former occupiers of Bridge House having used it as a tip for many years. The shaft was partially covered by wooden sleepers. The whole of the bank had been used as a refuse tip by Matlock Urban District council for many years and was a bottle diggers paradise but very well picked over before being fenced off.
There were also some minor workings or maybe natural crevices in the bank about 70m southwest of the shaft.

I recollect another sizeable shaft about 1.5m diameter being capped in about 1961 in the woods just about 10m north of the lane to Willersley Nurseries and farm, within enclosure 1380.911 as shown on the barmasters map, this shaft would have been where the most south westerly tree is shown in that enclosure on the map.

My motorcycling shaft is adjacent to the south easterly tree in the same enclosure, both of which appear to be slightly off the line of the Fillpurse vein, though I guess accuracy of the map and of my memory may leave something to be desired.

I very much look forward to reading your book and hope you will keep us informed of progress.

As a schoolboy I worked as a cavern guide in the Great Masson Cavern for the then owner Colonel Haddock. Woe betide you if the ticket stubs and cash did not balance at the end of the day. If the cash was short it was deducted from the 1s/6d hourly pay, if the cash was up he assumed that you had forgotten to give out a ticket and he kept the surplus. Least favourite job was wheelbarrowing the 47 gk gas cylinders up the hill for the gas light in the main chamber, there being no electricity in the Masson. Hurricane lamps were handed out to all.
Best regards Kurnal

The information about these shafts looks useful. I trust you would not mind me using any details in the book, giving you acknowledgement of course. If so, perhaps you could pm me with your name if you would prefer to be acknowledged by name.

There is still a lot to be learnt about the area, particularly if underground access could be gained.

The following obituary for Sougher was published in the PDMHS newsletter last year:

Margaret Howard (née May), 1932 - 2014
Margaret was born in Derby and epitomised the saying "Derbyshire born Derbyshire bred, strong in the arm and quick in the head."

From an early age she enjoyed walking in the Peak District and soon was fascinated with the underground, both caves and mines. She married a caver, John Oakley, who was a member of Op Mole, based at Oxclose Mine; the marriage was short lived. She came to Magpie with Reg Howard and both were soon regular attendees at the Field Centre. Margaret was an active member going on and leading walks, the classic being Margaret’s “Uphill Walk”. As Harry Parker said “We started out from Wensley walking uphill and walked uphill all day back to the start.” Margaret served on the Society Committee and wrote several articles for the Bulletin, one of which (R. Buckley and M. Howard, Greensward Mine and its Pumps, Monyash, Derbyshire, Mining History Vol. 12 No. 6.) was awarded The Ford Award for 1996, jointly with Roy Buckley.

Margaret knew Nellie Kirkham through going on her walks, and played no little part in persuading Nellie to get involved with the Society. Through other contacts, Roy Buckley and Frank Sheen, Margaret was involved in obtaining the Society its first powered winch, complete with a 750 foot brand new cable. Reg and Margaret moved to Hampshire, married and had four children. Margaret kept in touch with members of the Society and on her divorce in the late 1970s moved back to Derbyshire with the children. Then began a nomadic period moving about Derbyshire, staying in Sawmills, Oker and Bonsall. The children moved away, except that Tim and Margaret finally settled in a small cottage in Bonsall.

She became one of the first “Silver Surfers”, using the internet not only for research but to keep in touch with members and friends. Life is cruel and with failing eye sight and hearing Margaret had to leave her beloved Bonsall and move back down south to be cared for by her daughter and family. She managed to remain in touch and a member in spite of failing health, and passed away in March.

Most of her family are members of the Society, and Tim is a great supporter at the Field Centre. A Service of Thanksgiving for Margaret’s life was held at the Wessex Vale Crematorium, Hampshire, on the 11th of April.
Mave and Mike Luff

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Thanks for the obituary AR. Clearly from her postings on this forum a remarkable lady and we are much the poorer for her passing.

Historytrog please do not hesitate to use any of my comments in whatever way you wish, I am grateful to those who are prepared to share their knowledge on forums such as this and am pleased to reciprocate in any way I can.

I cannot pm you till my account is authorised by admin but will do so as soon as I hear from them. I do have a little more information on some of the shafts we have mentioned, the difficulty is sometimes that fact, personal experience, anecdotes by others and speculation become merged into one with the passage of time!

Reminds me very much of the spiel we used to offer during the cavern tours, most of which was very loosely based on fact, but then added to and embellished with each new generation of guides. Only t'owd man of the caverns, senior guide at the time Jack Mountney was able to speak with full authority. He usually worked in the Rutland.

One of the shafts that kurnul mentioned just north of the track to Willersley Cottage Farm must have been that descended by Op Mole in 1957 to get access to Bullacetree Level higher up than the blocked shaft in the orchard of Bridge House. They had to wade through mud so deep that they worried about being overwhelmed but got up into the main workings.

Incidentally, did kurnul ever notice any remains of wasteheaps or any other mining activity near Willersley Cottage Farm? One would expect that there were some important workings on Nether Hagg Vein here before Arkwright had them all landscaped away in the 1780s to form the parkland. So far as I know, no-one has explored workings on that length of Nether Hagg Vein.

Thanks for your reply Historytrog. It strikes me as being odd that neither of these shafts appear to be directly on the line of the workings as shown on the Barmasters map. I may be barking up the wrong tree entirely but I have seen comments that Moletrap and Bullestree were interconnected. I have never seen a map showing any detail of this but if you take as an example the map on page 143 of Lead Mining in the Peak District (Ford/Riewerts) and extend the line of Moletrap in the direction as shown it would pass exactly through the area containing the two shafts I describe at Grid reference 302574 (a little more accurate this time taken from the 1-25000 map.) If I can get hold of a more detailed map I will mark it up with all the shafts I recall and scan it in to the PC if only to enable you to eliminate my thoughts as inane ramblings!

Http://www2.derby.ac.uk/dmarc/online-projects/david-ainley 

(David and I were neighbours in the mid 1960s and I trust he will forgive me the following extract)

He writes " on De Loutherbourg’s View near Matlock, Derbyshire with Figures Working beneath a Wooden Conveyor (1785) in the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, is reputedly of Hagg Mine, a mine situated a short distance North of Cat Tor in Wright’s View in Matlock Dale… The mechanism of the engine at Hagg Mine was described by Eric Geisler in 1772-1773.[71] Jim Riewerts writes:

The wheel was 9 to 10 feet in diameter and 4 feet in width. It was situated on the west side of the river, the rods carried over it on a trestle bridge. The connecting rods in the level were of iron, the pump drawing water from 42 to 48 feet. A surface scene, reputedly of Hagg Mine, was painted by the noted artist De Loutherbourg. The author does not subscribe to this interpretation. It has been postulated (Willies et al, 1977) that the enterprise was abandoned about 1783 the sale notice being as follows:



3rd July, 1783. For sale the Mine called Hag and Bullestree with all the wheeles, engines and utensils belonging to the above mine. Enquire of Mr. Richard Alsopp of Wirksworth. (Derby Mercury)


The combination of Hagg Mine and Bullestree in the sale notice suggests that the above may relate to the wheels and pumps at the Nether Hagg (Moletrap Great Rake) Mine. Perhaps failure of either, or both of the Hagg Mines coincided with the building of the weir for Masson Mills which resulted in raising the water level by several feet.[72]

Trevor Ford records that Hagg Mine “was driven on a scrin trending southeast some 300 metres north of the weir by Masson Mill. The workings are all flooded, having been pumped using a water-wheel during the mid-late 18th century.”[73]

end of extract.

I am not sure if this is relevant but there remains some evidence of surface activity in the 10 acre field at Willersley GR 298576. The field is largely smooth but there is a single hummock and depression at approximately this grid reference which I had always assumed to be a blind trial dig. It might be as you suggest that the area was subsequently levelled. This might be too far north to be related to Hagg mine. There was an adit that led in from high up in the cliff face which we partially explored but withdrew as the roof appeared to be unstable.

I also recall an partly infilled shaft about 1.2m diameter and 5m deep in the woods in the vicinity of GR298573.

I would be happy to show you any of the locations if you wish for old times sake!

Just another thought, one of the old guys at Matlock Fire Station once told me they had descended into the new engine shaft at Bullestree mine in the 60s as a training exercise when they first were issued with sheerlegs and bosuns chair and it was a most unpleasant place which had been used for disposal of dead farm animals. They did not linger there.

Thanks for your comments but I do have detailed maps of Bullacetree and Moletrap and more information than any other published writers.

De Loutherbourg's engraving is of Hag Mine, not Nether Hag. Contemporary accounts make this clear and the valley and river at Nether Hag are much wider than is represented in the engraving.

Apologies if my comments were crass Historytrog, I shall await your book with great interest.

No problem - it makes a pleasant change for people to be interested.

I wondered if historytrog had any progress to report in respect of his book? Eagerly awaited!

It's getting nearer, I had the chance of a quick look at an early proof earlier this year. :thumbup:

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I have had much new information to feed into the draft over the last few months - Nellie Kirkham's stuff and also some Operation Mole reports that were very useful for Slit Rake and Bullacetree. Also many refs from internet research. The draft should be ready to pass onto the editor before Christmas to see if he still wishes to proceed with it.

I made a couple of visits to look round surface features of Bullacetree and chatted with the gentleman who lives in the first bungalow on the track to Willersley Farm who was most helpful. Unfortunately, the shafts that were recorded in the front of his property in 1957 have been filled in. They were presumably on Nether Hag Vein west of the Bullacetree Title. It looks as if there is nothing open in the Willersley fields on those veins.

Incidentally, the ore measurements for Bullacetree during the 1860s mention "ale dishes" that were paid about every two hundred dishes. Has anyone come across this term elsewhere in Derbyshire lead mining? It is not in Jim's glossary.

I don't think I've come across that particular term before, does it suggest any context, such as a dish whose proceeds were set aside to buy ale for the miners?

As for publication, PDMHS council felt this was a worthwhile thing for us to be doing as a society; we may look at taking advance subscriptions (as happened with Jim Rieuwerts' magnum opus) to offset the inital print costs but I'm confident we'll go ahead.

On an unrelated note, I visited Spinney Level last week and have been in discussion over whether the infamous inscription is old or a modern addition. I notice Jim R cited you as telling him it was first explored in 1969, was the inscription noticed at that time and was there any evidence of the mine having been visited since abandonment?

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On an unrelated note, I visited Spinney Level last week and have been in discussion over whether the infamous inscription is old or a modern addition. I notice Jim R cited you as telling him it was first explored in 1969, was the inscription noticed at that time and was there any evidence of the mine having been visited since abandonment?

I must be some sort of blind idiot :confused: I've looked for that inscription one several occasions and never found it ::)

It's a little way beyond the rise with the blue polyprop rope hanging down it on the left - look for a backfilled alcove on the right and it's opposite it.

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Thanks - going to have to go hunting for it again!

As regards Spinney Level in the Via Gellia, we were certainly not the first in it. It had been explored regularly by spar miners before us. In fact, we were told of its existence by Cyril Maddocks who was a spar miner.

Returning to the Matlock area, I was surprised to read in a recent publication by Prof. John Gunn that the thermal spring at Long Tor had stopped running from the riverside drainpipe. I have checked it and he is right. He does not realise that it is merely the outflow from the 1690s coffin gate sough up Bacon Vein (Blackstone Shaft Vein) to Nestus Mine. Presumably, there has been a massive collapse somewhere. It used to supply Whittaker's mineral works. Of course, thermal springs are not affected by drought.

Thanks for that; I'm in the process of doing a short bit for the O&D section of the PDMHS Newsletter as I think the inscription is next to a backfilled winze and striking house. The question I'm asking myself is whether the inscription is the result of a bored winding lad writing dirty words on the wall back in the 18th century, or did someone in the 20th century add to the initials that are already there? There's some rather explicit stuff among the early 20th century graffiti at the back of Arrock Mine so it's a possibility something similar has happened at Spinney though the use of the word "pintle" at Spinney along with its crossed "i" has a distinctly pre-Victorian feel.

Interesting about the thermal spring having stopped; I wonder where the water is going to now and whether there's any accessible route into the coffin level?

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