Does anyone know of a thermal spring or run-in mine level on the east side of the river at Matlock Bath? Located somewhere opposite the back of the Pavillion - I have just heard that fishermen used to make for it as a favourite place to fish, for the quality of fishing and because it kept their feet warm.
Another question - does the thermal water that feeds the fishpond and the pool and fountain above it (off Temple Road) come from a mine or spring conveniently breaking surface here. I have often wondered about this but cannot recall reading anything about it.

Does anyone know of a thermal spring or run-in mine level on the east side of the river at Matlock Bath? Located somewhere opposite the back of the Pavillion.

Surely opposite the back of the pavillion is the West side?, no thermal on that side.

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Opposite side of the river to the Pavillion, where I had not heard of thermal water appearing.

Opposite the Pavilion on the east bank of the river is the tail of a sough on Jackdaw Vein in the riverbank. The late Colin Oakman recorded it in 1979 as ‘a small drain 1 ft. 6 ins. wide and 1 ft. wide, with apparently none or very little water flow’. Allan Pentecost has recorded a trickle of water from the scree nearby. I think the riverside drain is not now visible - at least I could not see it when I looked a few years ago. It must be an interesting vein to have thermal water in it. I have never heard of anyone digging there.

There is also thermal water in Hagg Mine (the blocked entrance just north of the wall of Willersley Castle) and also in Nether Hagg Mine (the big run of flooded workings by Masson Weir in the grounds of Willersley Castle on the east end of the vein from Wapping Mine). Both of these have been surveyed, Hagg by myself and Andy Hayes plus the Sheffield University Caving Group, Nether Hagg by members of Orpheus (at least as far as the cave divers were able to get - it is a seriously difficult place). There has been enormous confusion over the names of Hagg (also called Didos Cave) and Nether Hagg.

You also ask about the water feeding the fishpond etc - most of this comes from the main thermal resurgence that once supplied the baths there. However, some is probably from two soughs there. One of the soughs was recorded in 1913 as being "at the back of Boden's bakery". Does anyone know which shop this was? It was somewhere below Temple Walk. Unfortunately, there has been little exploration done in the Matlock Bath area.

All this is taken from the text of my book on the mines of Matlock and Matlock Bath (which, unfortunately, I cannot get published). It'll end up appearing piecemeal on this website!

Thanks historytrog - I was confident that you would know about it. The fisherman who gave me the information said that there is not much trace now (buried under leaves etc.) but that it was warm on the wellies at one time. Please do press on with trying to have your book published it is obviously important and there are people eagerly waiting for it.

Profound apologies, I retract my previous post, in a classic senior citizen moment I forgot the river flowed south! :curse:

Back in the late 70's, early 80's, CDG Derbyshire did quite a bit of work in Dido's (could be something in their records?), in fact Chris Rhodes got a Royal Humane Society medal for a diving rescue in there!, I was not aware that it was thermal though.

Re- Historytrogs research, way back then wasn't the aquarium fed by a thermal spring?

Re- Historytrogs publishing trouble, can't PDMHS or BCRA help you out with this one?

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Thinking about that immediate area does anyone know where the water supply for the Petrifying Well (later replaced by a chip shop) came from?

Sorry for the delay in replying - I have been offline for a while because I rely on the local library for internet access.
Most of the petrifying wells just used off-shoots of the main thermal springs.
The aquarium is fed by Gilderoy Old Sough which cut the most powerful thermal springs on Bacon Rake. It is possible that the main thermal springs at Temple Walk are issuing from a sough but access underground in that area has not been possible since about 1800. The one at the back of Boden's bakery in 1913 was not apparently accessible at that time.

Of course, there were originally natural thermal resurgences there - as proved by the deposits of tufa - but they were greatly modified by mining activities.
The main resurgences at Matlock Bath contain pure thermal water - i.e. not contaminated with meteoric water as one would expect to occur in most mines. The thermal water that did not resurge in the valley floor continued to flow eastwards (hence the warm springs cut east of the river) and eventually it seems to pass below the Nottinghamshire coal field at great depth (as found in boreholes).
Hoping that PDMHS will ultimately publish my book (they did ask me to write it about 17 years ago!)

Bodens shop wa on the left hand side of M.Bath as you look toearsd Matlock a little bit before Holme road on your left there is a long set of steps which join Holme road higher up. faceing those steps bodens shop wa the second one on the left of the steps. If you need anymore info of the area let me know. I lived up there from childhhood in the 40s.

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There is a thermal spring in the sandbank opposite the mining museum. In the late 1970's I uncovered the top of a dry stone arch where the water resurges, but the river level is now too high for there to be any possibility of entry. I imagine the water level would have been somewhat lower before Masson weir was built. I'm unsure if this represents an origional sough tale or is a later drain that was put in when paths were but in and the area landscaped.

Having spent some time diving this section of the river in the 1980's while we were looking for submerged mine/sough entrances we noticed that there were also a few thermal springs issuing from the bed of the river between the mining museum and Jubilie Bridge. If you look over the wall when the river is very low and clear you can see bubbles rising from some of these springs.

Are there any details of the temperatures of these thermal springs? The fishpond by the Mining Museum certainly steams in cold winter weather, but the swimming pool at the New Bath Hotel is quoted as only 20 deg C which is rather low for a swimming pool. Sadly I'm unable to check it out as the hotel closed recently, due to the parent company going bust.

The warmest is 20'C, the coolest is that issuing from the sough at Long Tor at about 13'C, probably due to dilution with meteoric waters and a slow journey through collapses in the sough.
From about 1740-1860, great efforts were made to discover warmer springs at Matlock Bath but to no avail. If springs as warm as those at Buxton could have been found, it would have greatly increased the popularity of the spa at Matlock Bath.
All the springs at Matlock Bath seem to originate from Bacon Rake or the Bonsall Fault in the Ball Eye area.

Hello,

I have stumbled on your thread through an interest in finding mine and cave entrances in order to search for parasitised insects/spiders &c.

Where I might be able to help is in regards your book. Do you know about 'self publishing' ? A couple of my friends have gone down this route as their offerings have too limited an appeal to be of interest to formal publishers. I can obtain, I hope, the details from 2 who have gone through different publishers, one in Switzerland and the other in the USA. Problem is you would have to be prepared to do your own distribution work unless you can appoint an 'agent'.
Let me know if you are interested.

Would you be prepared to help me to pursue my studies, either by providing info. or guiding ?

Cheers,

Don.

Thank you for your suggestion about self-publishing. I shall first see if anyone wants to publish it. In recent months, I have been busy walking the mining titles to check over the latest historical information against the surface remains, which is being very productive.

I would certainly be glad to help your researches in whatever way I can. Unfortunately, I am not fit enough nowadays to do any underground exploration. If you have any specific queries, you could always send me a private message.

Just a suggestion, try formally asking PDMHS to publish it so that the request goes to council and gets discussed?

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I self-published a fine art photography book with Blurb, and was overjoyed with the results - I gather text-based books are produced just as well, and the quality is as good as regular books. For limited runs or ultra-specialist readerships, any of the quality self-publishing outfits are a godsend really.

Geoff Workman and Jim Roberts got into a mine level at the
base of the footpath up Wildcat.They knew it as Bat Cave and
part way in on the right side was a flooded stope that was found to be thermal and must flow back to the river but small
outflow.The local council sealed this up in the late 1950s.
Some guys from masson cc tried to get permission to open it but did not manage it.

The mine that you refer to as Bat Cave is in fact Hagg Mine by the Lovers Walks riverside footpath, north of the Willersley Castle boundary wall. This was a marvellous level, very spectacular and it should have been made into a show cave rather than sealed off with no access gate. I surveyed it in c.1972 with Andy Hayes and it was also surveyed by The Sheffield University Caving Club who used the flooded stopes to carry out experiments on the thermal water environment c.1976.

We dive here its also known as Didos cave the water in there is 8 Deg so that would put it at the same temp as all none thermal underground water .

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Bat Cave is at the bottom of the footpath before the Gate
down to Haggs or Didos Cave and sealed up.