No, not as in "going out with"... ::)

On our recent trip into the depths of Fron Boeth. we came across this, on Floor 17 iirc:

🔗Fron-boeth-Slate-Mine-User-Album-Image-51697[linkphoto]Fron-boeth-Slate-Mine-User-Album-Image-51697[/linkphoto][/link]

And a similar box:

🔗Fron-boeth-Slate-Mine-User-Album-Image-51510[linkphoto]Fron-boeth-Slate-Mine-User-Album-Image-51510[/linkphoto][/link]

It appears to be the Nobel Explosives (Glasgow) logo:

🔗Fron-boeth-Slate-Mine-User-Album-Image-51698[linkphoto]Fron-boeth-Slate-Mine-User-Album-Image-51698[/linkphoto][/link]

A little bit of research suggests that Nobel Explosives was founded in Glasgow in 1871 http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/industrial/articles/lundstrom/index.html , that production halted in 1915 due to the war and subsequently in 1926 Nobel Explosives became part of the new Imperial Chemical Industries.

It would also look, according to info on DaveL's website http://www.davel.f2s.com/hendrecoed/Wilkinson/search/mine.cgi?ID=14158&SEARCH_TYPE=M , as if Fron Boeth was mostly worked from 1885 to 1897 - which suggests that the explosives box would have been left there in the last nineteenth century.

Quite when floor 17 was abandoned is another question - as SimonRL astutely identified, the absent bridge which blocks the access along the level appears to have been removed rather than fallen. The suggestion would be that the timbers would have been re-used elsewhere, hence their removal rather than allowing them to collapse.

Can anyone cast any more light on this?

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This would have been dynamite wouldn't it? Used for tunneling or removing unwanted rock from chambers, hoping DylanW or Hymec580c can tell us more.

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Quite when floor 17 was abandoned is another question - as SimonRL astutely identified, the absent bridge which blocks the access along the level appears to have been removed rather than fallen. The suggestion would be that the timbers would have been re-used elsewhere, hence their removal rather than allowing them to collapse.

Can anyone cast any more light on this?

Actually that astute observation may actually have been astutely observed to me by somebody else - Owain IIRC 😞

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It's definitely a Nobel's box - the logo matches, though I've not seen a version with "NOBEL" above the logo as well. On the cartridges, the type of explosive was printed above the logo in a similar typeface - so the box may have contained Nobel Carbonite or Nobel Ardeer Powder. What was mined here?

They would have been five-pound cardboard boxes - definitely not recommended practice to take these boxes into the mine, you were meant to use a proper wooden case to carry the cartridges 🙂

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It was slate that was mined here, there were 25lb black powder barrels too! Mind you the Nobel boxes would be just the right size for a packed lunch.

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Ah, not Carbonite or Ardeer Powder, then - they were safety explosives for coal mining, and while they would have done the heaving nicely, black powder would be cheaper. The 1907 Nobel's book says that blasting gelatine is good for removing useless rock in slate quarries - even has some pictures of this at Dinorwic.

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Have found a few boxes, apparently exactly the same, in lead mines.

"dating a Nobel Explosive Box" - That would be an explosive experiance i guess!

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