Hi everyone,

A year ago I found an awesome post on 28dayslater, where some people went down Wheal Jane and took a bunch of photos. Back then the shaft was uncapped (it's fenced now). Looking at their photos I decided that was an awesome hobby. It was amazing to see old the old abandoned mine equipment and exploring these old historic places looked awe inspiring. My brother has been doing this sort of thing for years, but he's up Plymouth way now. Anyway he put me on to you guys, and in searching for various bits of mine info this site keeps cropping up :)

So anyway, I spent the last year going round looking at mineshafts. I "found" a complete set of the County Series 1880 maps in TIF format. I spent some time converting them to Google Earth projection, and now have implemented them as a custom overlay on Google Maps (the red pins are links to photos I've taken at that location):


At my brother's advice I've also picked up a copy of Dines, which is pretty useful so far. And then there's the abandonment plans in the County Records Office, at least when they haven't lost them 😛 (R299, the first one I asked for, is "lost")

But after spending a year off and on looking at mineshafts, it seems that 99% of them are capped, and apart from photographing them there's not a lot more I can do. So I'm refocusing on adits, and I'd love to start going inside.

But that's not something to do alone, and currently I have no climbing gear (or experience). So I'm looking to join a group that does this sort of thing. Either going out looking for adits or exploring the ones that are known. Or anything mine-related, really :)

If any groups have room for a newb, would be good to meet some fellow mine explorers.

great work- what neck of the woods is this?
:thumbup:

Given the picture has an overlay of North Wheal Jane, I'd take a stab at Cornwall.

If that's the case, look for some of the Carbis Bay Crew that post on here, and I'm fairly sure they have a website too.

Just be aware that 28dl is not particularly well liked by some mine explorers, as they have managed to get themselves a reputation. Although I don't frequent *that* particular site, I, like a number of others, started in "Urbex" but found Mine exploration to be of more interest.

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I have found 28DL generally OK in that they dont leave litter or mess a place up. I believe however that they may have a certain ongoing relationship with padlocks.
This wont affect me as CMT doesn't do padlocks.
Goginan is temporary while digging going on.

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Yup I'm in Truro, Cornwall. Have car, will travel a few miles :p

Roy, what is CMT? Tried Google but came up empty handed (something tells me Copper Mines of Tasmania is not you :p)

Roy, what is CMT?

http://www.iriscom.co.uk/CMT/ 

That's pretty awesome. I love the idea of reopening and preserving old mines and workings. Hell, you'd think they'd do the same down here in Cornwall, given how important mining was down here.

The council sure as hell won't do it tho, given that they'd prefer to bulldoze them all for new business parks! I guess it's hard to convince most people that old mines are anything more than a liability.

S'way it goes down there South of the border. The old ways have gorne and those in power want to generate new income to fill the void that was left when the mines eventually closed.

If you fancy some easy mines/caves drop me a PM, Mendip has plenty and a damm fine craic along with it.

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Thanks for the offer 🙂 Shame you're not a tad closer tho - half way to London and all 😛 But thanks all the same.

It's a good offer from Wormster. Besides if your in Cornwall everywhere is a bit of a treck. 😉

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the overlay looks good, planety to do down here but if you can venture up mendips there are some fun holes there to play in 😃

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Cornwall Mine Explorer's Club meets at the Coppice (just down from lanner) first thurs of the month.

There is a general turnout of people who are involved in all sorts of organisations, from actual mining projects, consultants, rescue experts, historians, cavers and all sorts of mixtures of the above.

Quite a few of us are out and about a lot. It's good to see new people and answer various questions, as well as compare notes ourselves.

I have a spare set of rope gear. Many of the trips are rope jobs. It's not difficult, but it requires a very exact setup of kit.

I like your overlay. Is that done in GIS or imaging?

This coming thurs is Coppice night.

I'll try to get to the Coppice on Thurs if at all possible.

As for the overlay, it's just something I cooked up in JavaScript, using the Google maps API. Pretty simple stuff truth be told 😛 It has all the map data for the whole county tho, which is nice.

There are tons of shafts not on that map (probably vent shafts) and it doesn't show adits, but it's been interesting up to now to go and find them.

And also to see how many buildings are built right on top of shafts too!

Hi i'm a bit of a thicko with computers , is there anyway we can view your photos on this ?

Hi i'm a bit of a thicko with computers , is there anyway we can view your photos on this ?

Effectively it's a website. But it's not a website that lives on the internet, it just lives on my computer.

The map data is over 5GB alone (I can probably reduce this, the original data was just over 1GB). The photos are another few hundred MB. The road map and satellite map is streamed from Google, so you need an internet connection to use it.

I can simply upload the whole thing as a collection of files, which you'd then need to download and save. Then you'd click on the HTML file to open the website, and then you'd see what I see (maps and photos). However any new photos I take would need to be handled the same way, as you'd effectively have a static copy of the website. Also when I make changes (improve) the website you wouldn't get them unless I sent them to you.

The alternative would be to set my computer up as a web server, so you don't need to do any of the downloading mentioned. It would then be a real website accessible from any net connected device. The downside to that is that my internet connection is very slow, and not really suitable for web hosting. But it would work (eventually). Also any changes and new photos would be available instantly.

There is one advantage to making it a real website. I could provide a facility for other people to upload their own photos as well as my own. But I think stuff like that already exists via other sites (which are much more pro standard and with better hosting 😛 I'm just an amateur coder).

I would be very interested in hosting this online if you would like, plenty of space available

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Sounds like a plan 😉 It's only a very early work-in-progress atm, but useful enough in it's current form for my purposes :)

I do plan on extending and improving it.

If Hugo or anyone from MEC is here, is there any plan for the Cligga trip we talked about?

Also wellies... steel toe cap or not, I understand this is somewhat controversial 😛 My regular gard'nin' wellies are about ten sizes too big, so will be getting something a little more snug, and probably a little more grippy.

Any recommendations? I never thought I'd ask someone to recommend me some wellies 😛

If Hugo or anyone from MEC is here, is there any plan for the Cligga trip we talked about?

Also wellies... steel toe cap or not, I understand this is somewhat controversial 😛 My regular gard'nin' wellies are about ten sizes too big, so will be getting something a little more snug, and probably a little more grippy.

Any recommendations? I never thought I'd ask someone to recommend me some wellies :p

Dunlop actifort (red ones ) WITH toecap and insole.
Great for walking about mine sites (but not for swimming in!)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Dunlop%20Acifort%20Warwick