cubitmg
  • cubitmg
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8 years ago
Hi

Can anyone help with the precise location of this mine entrance. We spent over an hour scouring the area for hundred of metres around the supplied details (Latitude: 56.3393, Longitude: -2.90744, Landranger grid reference: NO440167) which looks like a good place to park a car maybe, but not for the mine.

We did find a number of other mines and have the following GPS readings for them which it would be good to update in the database:
Charlestown Limestone Mine - currently recorded as NT065841 actually from NT06338385 (56.038384,-3.504907) along to NT06428400.
Blebocraigs Sandstone Mine - currently NO427158 actually at NO42661560 (56.329336,-2.928787).

Cheers
Mark
cubitmg
  • cubitmg
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8 years ago
Many thanks ILT. We didn't try the Nydie quarry area as it looked like sheep pasture and was over a slight rise, that was maybe our mistake, although looking at your link photos it does appear to be pasture after all. We looked mostly around Nydie Wood as that seemed to have the vegetation and nettles shown in one of the photos. We did wonder about the wood with the Knock Hill quarry that your image shows, but that just seemed too far away from the grid reference to be likely.

Your maps look like a very useful resource, are these publicly available?

Thanks
Mark
cubitmg
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8 years ago
Cool, thanks. I have been using NLS, but the 1915 tip is very helpful.

I agree about 6-figure grid-refs, but if they were accurate then it wouldn't be so bad. If that are used then they have an implied accuracy of 100m which appears to be rarely the case. With GPS on phones these days 8-figure grid-refs should be the norm and they should also be accurate to the implied 10m.

Simon tells me that the site uses lat/long for the markers, but it is easy enough to convert.

Thanks again
Mark
RichardB
8 years ago
Nydie Quarry has been filled in and landscaped. I've been there loads of times (it was the council tip) and even I can't tell where it was without a map.

Knockhill Quarry is a little bit further up the hill towards Strathkinness. There's a small track leading into the woods on your left. You follow that in and you'll find a railway wagon. Just past that on the outside of the hill you'll see the underground parts. Not that much to it but you'll see some nice colours and tool marks.



rhychydwr
8 years ago
Knockhill Sandstone Mine aka Knock Hill NGR NO 443 167 Explorer Kemback. Fife
This impressive mine was excavated from a long north-facing outcrop of the Calciferous Sandstone Measures, now largely overgrown from a long north-facing outcrop of the Calciferous Sandstone Measures, now largely overgrown with pine, gorse and bracken. Nearest to the road is a small quarry with a 20 m deep face; here the only features of interest are two short caves in the upper western section of the face. These caves, approximately 1 m and 3 m long, form short tunnels linking at the surface to a small ledge on the quarry face; perhaps originally natural features, they may have been widened during quarrying.
Northeast wards, beyond the small quarry, one arrives at the main workings, a magnificent face almost 0.5 km long with three main mined sections. These sections rarely extend back more than 20 m from the face, but may be as wide as 60 m or more. The sandstone is cream or buff-coloured and thickly bedded. In the mined sections, pillars have been regularly left to support the roof. Height varies in the workings from an average of 3 m to 7 m in one particularly large chamber, but is very much less in eastern and southern parts where there have been extensive roof falls. Some excellent fossils were noted. The attractive stone was widely used for building in St Andrews, but was found to be too soft and easily weathered.
Jeffreys, Alan 2008 Mines in Scotland 34
Yuill 25-26


Cutting coal in my spare time.
cubitmg
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8 years ago
Thanks very much Richard and rhychydwr. Very helpful.

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