AR
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11 years ago
I've just looked for this mine and nearly recreated it because I couldn't find it in the a-z listing due to the quotes around the name, though a quick geographic search starting from Odin found it. As a suggestion, could we change the title of this site to Blue John Cavern Fluorite Mine? :flowers:
Follow the horses, Johnny my laddie, follow the horses canny lad-oh!
RJV
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11 years ago
No prob, changed now.
RJV
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11 years ago
Does it have an alternative name it might be listed under by any chance? I thought I'd seen some pictures on here recently.
AR
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11 years ago
I can't remember off the top of my head what the 18th century lead miners called the place, but it's been called Blue John Cavern for a long time now. I don't know about recent photos on the site but pwhole got permission to photograph stuff outside of the tourist route for Jim Rieuwerts' Thornhill book so he might be willing to put some up here?
Follow the horses, Johnny my laddie, follow the horses canny lad-oh!
pwhole
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11 years ago
Heh - I was just about to reply when you beat me to it! I have the day off due to a nasty (and imminent) dentist's trip. It was Waterhole Mine - mentioned in Jim's book. There's also a good article he had included in the TSG Journal 15, I think, about the abortive lead trial in there, believed to be in the Inferior Gallery and Stemple Cavern, and the reason I went in to photograph them.

There's certainly sod-all mineral in the roof to warrant the amount of stemple holes in there - all very odd. Henry Rockcliffe was of the opinion that they were essentially just tossing it off and pretending to mine to satisfy some legal requirment or other. Jim's article doesn't shed any light on why they were so interested, but it was Bagshaw, and he was usually pretty good with his locations.

And yes indeed - I will post them up as soon as I can.
RJV
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11 years ago
"pwhole" wrote:

Waterhole Mine .


Cheers, added that as the alternative name.

"pwhole" wrote:

And yes indeed - I will post them up as soon as I can.


Ace. On a similar vein, so to speak, would you mind uploading a couple of JH, presuming you have some. Mine on here are a bit crap to say the least. :flowers:
AR
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11 years ago
Having seen the inferior gallery and the multiple stemple slots myself and had some discussion with John Barnatt at the time, the miners may have been working their way up a sediment fill in there. This is most obvious at the bottom of the steep climb, where the chamber has an obvious tide-mark about 10 feet up and a perched stalacmite boss. There's certainly no vein there so there can't be any other reason for so much effort being put in to create working platforms.
Follow the horses, Johnny my laddie, follow the horses canny lad-oh!
darkmole
11 years ago
Adam most of the lead ore in there is or was in the clay
sediment which is were they are now having to work the
Blue John as the Fluorite veins exposed are pinching out.
As to the stemple marks some were "recent" to access the
candelarbra at the Variegated Chamber and others could be
exploratory or to access earlier lights.


Dark Mole[center]
pwhole
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11 years ago
I was assuming if no sharp practices were occurring, then it might be a similar situation to what we've found in the other pipes/caves nearby, and that the ore was 'loose' or bound up within sediment infill of natural caverns, requiring little in the way of blasting. Certainly reminds me strongly of another site not too far away, at least in a structural sense.

Funnily enough, I only have a few of JH - various scattered shots of the cartgate and the base of Leviathan. Oh, and a birthday party in a side-chamber in The Workshop, but hadn't wanted to upset anyone! This was tea, cake and candles though, rather than booze, research chemicals and fireworks 😉
AR
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11 years ago
I think a lot of the pipes mentioned in old accounts for the Castleton area (and Winster too) would have been clay-filled voids that the miners dug and washed the lead ore out of, rather than the pipe mineralisation of the blue john deposits.

The stemple notches in the inferior gallery did seem to be in runs of two or three each, suggestive of working platforms rather than ladder supports and this would suggest miners working upwards through the infill. It would have been easy work, just dig it out, chuck it down and use the streamway at the bottom to wash the clay away - even if the yield wasn't massive, there wouldn't have been the expense of powder!
Follow the horses, Johnny my laddie, follow the horses canny lad-oh!
pwhole
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11 years ago
There's a big slump of sediment in one of the shots I'll post shortly, which may correspond to the phenomenon you're discussing - right at the intersection of the Inferior Gallery with Stemple Cavern.

http://www.aditnow.co.uk/album/Blue-John-Blue-John-Mine-User-Album/ 

Incidentally, I have an archive photo of Stemple Cavern that I photocopied from the Puttrell scrapbook on microfiche in Sheffield Local Studies Library. It's spookily taken from almost the identical spot I took mine, but I found this photo months after my visit. I think it's a Frank Brindley photo, from 1929, and probably from the Sheffield Telegraph, but have no idea if that's OK to post in the Archive album?

I assume it's copyright-free if it's in the library and you can make copies for 20p a page?
AR
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11 years ago
Copyright would be with Frank Brindley's descendants or the Sheffield Telegraph rather than Sheffield Libraries. I'd be inclined to say post it in the archive and credit it to FB.

The bit I was referring to is at the bottom of the climb up, rather than on the other side of the grotty tight crawl that even Moose doesn't bother trying, but same sort of thing - tidemarks left where the former sediment fill has gone.
Follow the horses, Johnny my laddie, follow the horses canny lad-oh!
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