Some new photos have appeared, a number of them courtesy of Miles, of Votty/Foty or Bowydd.

Due to recent untopping work there a section of the Tuxford incline has reappeared:

[img]http://www.aditnow.co.uk/showimage?f=/community/Bowydd-10-06-2007-Image-001/[/img]

Album: http://www.aditnow.co.uk/album/Bowydd-10-06-2007/ 

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So whats going on here, are they removing all the crap from the pit floor in order to start hacking the pillars out from the exposed chambers?

I would guess so - i.e. they are after the pillars - although they seem to be sorting and grading waste as well.

DylanW?

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What is interesting to see in this case though is how untopping work has actually uncovered something that for decades could not be seen.

Not for long I suspect, it'll be obliterated soon!

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What exactly is the difference bwtween Votty and Bowydd?

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They were originally two separate workings:

Votty (or Foty in Welsh) both originally developed from the 1830s and amalgamated to form the big Votty and Bowydd quarry in the 1870s.

Closed in 1963. Now being untopped.

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Cheers..
Am I right in understanding that Votty was the older of the two?

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I think Bowydd - it dates (my previous post was a bit misleading) from the late 18th century...

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HUmm.. I read in a book that a quarryman from Cumbria went at quite an early stage to astablish the Bowydd and Votty Quarries.....

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Bowydd is the earlier of the two, although Diffwys up the hill is even earlier (about 1760's).

You're right LAP, some lakeland chaps called Turner and the Casson brothers took over Diffwys, then started to form Bowydd around 1780.

Bowydd united with hafodty (The little quarry the other side of Maen Offeren's waste tip) to form Votty and Bowydd in 1870.

How are we all?!

I was wandering how long it would take for photos of the arch to appear on here when I (yes, it was I!) uncovered it on Tuesday, 5th june!

We actually have photos of the lower side of the arch- which we decided to take before continuing working.

Yes, as some of you guessed, we are after the pillars, and have been working the pit now for over an year.

I would like to warn "would be" explorers to keep away- For obvious reasons.

P.S. I dont "hack" pillars - I Blast them!

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It's weird that Welsj slate quarries atill use blasting, all of Cumbria's now use only diamon wire sawing, apart from Honister, which is of course a slate mine. and yes.. we do do a bit of pillar robbing up here, but nothing to the scale of it in Wales.

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Good to see Llechwedd are now extracting some material from foty in order to produce slates.
About 10 years ago we went as far as we could on the 'A' level, that is the lowest which isn't flooded. As wae were walking along the addit towards the chambers we noticed that a large part of the roof was lose and being held up by fresh air and skyhooks. We took a lot of photos of the worked out chambers which also had the names of workmen working there sometime in the 1950's.
Then having returned to the area about 4 years ago we found that the roof had collapsed at the area we found to be in poor order. So I am glad we have the photos anyway.
As a matter of fact my great grandparents and their 5 children lived in Votty cottage from 1880 until 1907 as my great grandfather William Jones was the caretaker of the water at foty and Bowydd. The cottage is now under the large Maeafferen tip which is being worked by the crushing plant. So I would encourage Llechwedd/Blaencefn to get on with shifting the tip in order to reveal the foundations of the old cottage.

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How are we all?!

I was wandering how long it would take for photos of the arch to appear on here when I (yes, it was I!) uncovered it on Tuesday, 5th june!

We actually have photos of the lower side of the arch- which we decided to take before continuing working.

Yes, as some of you guessed, we are after the pillars, and have been working the pit now for over an year.

I would like to warn "would be" explorers to keep away- For obvious reasons.

P.S. I dont "hack" pillars - I Blast them!

BOOM!

If you dig up anything else please remember to photograph it and tell us 🙂

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We actually have photos of the lower side of the arch- which we decided to take before continuing working.

Are you going to share your pics with us DylanW?

Dylan,

If it's not a daft question, why is Fotty being worked again - presumably you're making roofing slates or tiles or something similar?

And similarly, from what I remember of the site (I've not been into Fotty; I must be the only one 😉 ) - the vein dips down under the access road to Maenofferen: is this not going to limit the amount of work you can do without moving a lot of overlying rock?

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Yes, we are working the pillars in order to produce roofing slates, tiles and slab-scants.

As you pointed out quite correctly, the amount of material we will be able to get will be limited by the over-burden and slate tip/acces road to maenofferen.

As for now, there are a few old-vein, and new vein pillars that don' t need alot of untoping work to be be done to get at the pillars.

Hope that will be of use to you!

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|Out of interest.. how long does the procedure of one untopping take... do you ever deploy wire saws, or always gunpowder..?

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It might be of use as happens. But not in the way you thought: I might be after some slate floor tiles for the hall shortly... 😉

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wel, it all depends on the scale of untoping, it usually takes a couple of months for a large scale untoping.

We only use black powder for extracting the slate from the pillars, wire saws have been tryed/used, but takes to long for the extraction levels we require to keep the mill going.

As for the un-toping work on the granite roofs - we use 4" diamiter rig holes, spaced 10' x 10' (roughly), and use a high explosive emulsion or slurry type, ee Powergel / Orex, as a base charge and ANFOS as a column charge.

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