sinker
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12 years ago
One offs are quite common. I grew up in Dyffryn Ardudwy, and that stretch of beach between Tal y Bont and Shell Island was at the time (early 70's) dotted with WW2 concrete pill boxes every 2-3 miles. The sand dunes had been used for artillery practice and strafing practice for aircrew who were posted at RAF Llanbedr for training. When the wind whipped up a storm every now and then over the winter, sand dunes shifted and uncovered lots of "interesting" finds, mainly artillery shells and aircraft ammunition, but on one occasion a 9mm Luger pistol (with "one in the chamber") which I still have! My father, in the RAF and used to dealing with such things, dis-armed it in the garage, disposed of the round and let me keep the pistol, allthough I wasn't allowed to take it out of the house! 😉
Sorry, :offtopic: , but an interesting tale none the less.
Often wondered how a German weapon found it's way there... :blink:
Yma O Hyd....
Stephen Young
12 years ago
Came across giant cans of corned beef in sand filled mine workings near the Penhale Camp north of Perranporth and brass 20mm K2 1941 cannon shell casings from old workings below Nancekuke in the late '60's but alas no tanks or jeeps!

Steve
ICLOK
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12 years ago
Apparently there are 200 Spitfires buried in a local coal mine up here!!!! Not really... Duh but there are Merlin Engine bits a plenty in certain filled in quarries in the locale 😉
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!
Roy Morton
12 years ago
I've found .303 rounds all over the place. When we first found a way into Wh Uny in the early 80's there were de-fused anti personnel mines and scores of .303 rounds.
Whilst crawling through a particularly grotty gunged up adit near St Agnes, a friend in front of me felt something in the gunge and pulled out a mortar round...Nice! 😮
I have a 303 bullet on my desk at the moment that I found in an open cut at Boswin near Porkellis. I'd gone down to rescue a dog and had stopped on the way up for a rest and a harness re-adjust, and it was sitting on a ledge. The shell case was very thin and the bullet practically dropped out into my hand as I picked it up.
There's another Boswin near Mabe that has a small filled quarry, which is purported to have, 'Harley Davidson's all greased up in crates' at the bottom. We dug there for old bottles and found a set of girder forks, but they were off an old reliant.
If I had a quid for every tale I've heard like that, I could buy a Harley. :lol:
"You Chinese think of everything!"
"But I''m not Chinese!"
"Then you must have forgotten something!"
scooptram
12 years ago
Roy why would you want a harley? :lol: :lol:
scooptram
12 years ago
Roy why would you want a harley? :lol: :lol:
AR
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12 years ago
"ICLOK" wrote:

Apparently there are 200 Spitfires buried in a local coal mine up here!!!! Not really... Duh but there are Merlin Engine bits a plenty in certain filled in quarries in the locale ;)



I seem to recall hearing a load of radio parts were dumped in the same place, but salvaged and re-used, and the Home Guard chucked a load of surplus .303 rounds down Whalf Over Engine shaft, as reported in early exploration write-ups!
Follow the horses, Johnny my laddie, follow the horses canny lad-oh!
Manicminer
12 years ago
Old tar or oil in a copper mine tip could just as easily be from early flotation plants. There's plenty of it burried in the tailings tip at Gasdir Copper mine here in North Wales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froth_flotation 

Gold is where you find it
John Mason
12 years ago
At Van in the 1990s Simon Hughes and I did an archaeological survey that involved shifting many tonnes of jig tailings that were covering parts of the old mill etc. For said purpose we obtained a self-drive mini digger that I operated and one day noticed something a bit unusual fall out of the bucket with the other stuff. It was metal and about 2ft long if memory serves me well and shaped a but like a pestle with a bulbous end. I plonked it in the back of my cab and carried on working. When the job ended it went in the back of my landrover where it stayed for some weeks rolling around with various tools, rocks etc.

One quiet afternoon, Simon decided to clean it up and take a closer look, and found that the bulbous end unscrewed....

Some time later a rather nervous policeman came to collect it and pass it onto bomb disposal. It was a spigot bomb: dropped by hand from an aircraft the steel shaft acted like a flight to ensure it fell straight and would on impact be rammed forward into the bulbous bit, initiating a detonator that would fire off a couple of pounds of high explosive.

We never did hear for sure that it was still viable, but internally it appeared to be in excellent nick. Later, the main works was commenced at Van with much bigger machinery and further ordnance turned up in the shape of a white phosphorous bomb that detonated and gave a digger driver a serious fright. The Army were summoned and did their stuff and and nearby, all together in a cluster, they found another 2-3 dozen such bombs. The one that went off was off to one side of these on its own - fortuitously!
Dolcoathguy
12 years ago
Likewise there are stories of old Military equipment at the bottom of some of the older mica dams and flooded clay pits.

All I know for sure is that many locals would chuck a mattress down old open shafts (Tryphena? the one near Knave-go-by) even when Pendarves was working (I guess they never went that far south?)
Is it safe to come out of the bunker yet?
Willy Eckerslyke
12 years ago
Apologies to those who've seen this before, but here's a cracking couple of photos of Cooke's Explosives' store in Croesor:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/63164772@N05/6893645840/ 
"The true crimefighter always carries everything he needs in his utility belt, Robin"
ICLOK
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12 years ago
"AR" wrote:

"ICLOK" wrote:

Apparently there are 200 Spitfires buried in a local coal mine up here!!!! Not really... Duh but there are Merlin Engine bits a plenty in certain filled in quarries in the locale ;)



I seem to recall hearing a load of radio parts were dumped in the same place, but salvaged and re-used, and the Home Guard chucked a load of surplus .303 rounds down Whalf Over Engine shaft, as reported in early exploration write-ups!



Roy its a matter of fact around here that several disused shafts had plenty of merlin RR parts deposited in them....

A funny but none mining one is that I recently visited a country house at which my Grandad was the gardener many years ago, he was duly remembered and I was given access... as we walked around the site talking I remarked how nice the pond was, I was just about to tell him the witty story of how grandad told me the local homeguard had chucked live rounds, grenades, etc etc in there when he interupted "Huh that f**king thing.. (pause).... that F**king pond cost us a fortune.... we dredged it and it was full bullets, grenades and bloody sh*te left over from WW2, had to get the bloody army in... etc etc cost a fortune etc etc ".... I decided my funny story was probably not that funny!!!! Ahem :angel:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!
Wormster
12 years ago
"Willy Eckerslyke" wrote:

Apologies to those who've seen this before, but here's a cracking couple of photos of Cooke's Explosives' store in Croesor



Far Canal!!, that's a few pounds of bang then!
Better to regret something you have done - than to regret something you have not done.
Tamarmole
12 years ago
I have been assured that several surplus Harleys were dumped down a shaft at Harrowbarrow in the Tamar valley.

Why is it I only ever find decomposing Ford Escorts?
RJV
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12 years ago
There's said to be buried Merlin engines in a quarry near the airfields near here too.

A quick Google search on 'buried Merlin engines' reveals that they are buried pretty much everywhere - they must have made gazillions of em.

Personally I think that until I've seen one underground with my own eyes I'll take it with a pinch of salt.
ICLOK
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12 years ago
fortunately in 3 cases around here I have seen serialised spares inc a lovely Merlin Cam at Crich
:thumbup:
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!
RJV
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12 years ago
I wonder if for traders in militaria, 'found it in a quarry' has the same meaning as, 'fell of the back of a lorry'?
NickPeak
12 years ago
From the official aerodrome chart for East Midlands: "Interference may cause large fluctuations to magnetic compass indications in the vicinity of Runway 27 threshold"
i.e. the east end near the M1 motorway. This is believed to be due to buried metal from it's wartime days.

Slightly further north - digging in Hilts Quarry at Crich is not recommended due to the presence of more toxic metals from RR. :thumbdown:
nameduser
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12 years ago
wow! There was I thinking about tieing a nylon rope around the muzzle of a sherman and dragging it up out of a shaft with my ford escort!
Not really, the only post war stuff I know about is underwater off the normandy beaches. I would have thought any such dumps would have been well known given the time since the war and the 'lure of the mines' on generations since said war.
But I wanted to get other peoples ideas on the story.

Thanks everyone.

BoB
ICLOK
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12 years ago
"NickPeak" wrote:

From the official aerodrome chart for East Midlands: "Interference may cause large fluctuations to magnetic compass indications in the vicinity of Runway 27 threshold"
i.e. the east end near the M1 motorway. This is believed to be due to buried metal from it's wartime days.

Slightly further north - digging in Hilts Quarry at Crich is not recommended due to the presence of more toxic metals from RR. :thumbdown:



Nick I also wouldn't want to investigate certain areas around here that have lets say been visited by Concorde by products 😉
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!

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