Weekend before last I did the Great Nent Trip with Spary_Lea, Colonel Mustard, Heb, Jones the Slate, Briony and Merddinemrys.

For those not familiar with the route this starts in Capelcleugh, and passes through Smallcleugh (via Capelcleugh High back to Smallcleugh) to Rampgill, then Brownley Hill and finally exits from Nentsberry Haggs.

It was an amazing through trip, made possible in entirity by Mr Mike and his crew with their dig in Nentsberry Haggs :flowers:

Anyhow, this isn't intended as a trip report. After leaving the mine we had a short discussion about who had (or has) it the best in terms of mine exploration.

This full round trip has only recently become possible due to the mentioned dig. And nowadays we have the benefit of super bright LED torches and easily portable digital photography equipment.

In the future doubtless other lost mines or lost connections will be dug out; but others will be lost due to collapse or access arrangements. Metalwork (ladders and so forth) and timbers will degrade and certain routes will no longer be passable - or at least not without a lot of work.

Wind the clock back a bit and I can think of countless locations just in Welsh slate which I'd loved to have visited but can't. But the explorers of 20, 30 or more years ago would tell us we have it easy with our modern lights and camera kit.

So, who has (or had) it best in mine exploration?

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I've often thought about the same thing, some great stuff was accessible in the 80's around Nenthead, but no longer so, unless you take on some big digs.

A ex NORPEX explorer told be about their explorations in Caplecleugh and how they got into Smallcleugh for the first time via that link, it must have been amazing, particularly the calcified formations, only get to see them a few times due to the passage of people.

The ease that photos are now taken is amazing, compared to what had to be done in the dark times before digital cameras. As with all areas in life, technology advances make it easier for the current generations.

By the way Simon, you mention CC high level is that a mistake or did you do some sort of trip through that into SC? I ask as I have been looking into a link from CC High to Smallcleugh.

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By the way Simon, you mention CC high level is that a mistake or did you do some sort of trip through that into SC? I ask as I have been looking into a link from CC High to Smallcleugh.

Not a mistake. You have to go via a short section of CC High on the route we took. You will know the passage well - its the one with the big pipe leading to the Bog Shaft

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How long did it take getting seven people round that way?

How long did it take getting seven people round that way?

Lets face it, on a trip[ like this, you can take as long as you like.. if you start deviating and looking things, you could be in there for days. I think we took about 10hrs 😉

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I suspect the answer will come out to be either the 1950s or early 60s. For places that were still open, access could often be gained by a polite request to the manager. For places that had closed you had 50 years less rot. Above all no H&S worries, sensible people took care and did what they were told and twits had their due reward.

I cannot answer for freelance exploring as I was not into that but I have many memories of trips that I doubt would be organizable today even if the sites still existed.

A good example of what was possible then:- A party of about 20 under 16 year old teenagers plus 1 adult being given an underground conducted tour of Point of Ayr colliery. NCB provided 1 miner as guide and ALL clothing (we were allowed to take nothing down - they even provided paper underwear), boots helmets etc. Tour lasted several hours, visited both working and idle parts of the mine, followed by showers and a meal all at their expense. All that at one of the highest methane mines in the land! I'll bet you could not organize the equivalent now.

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Lets face it, on a trip[ like this, you can take as long as you like.. if you start deviating and looking things, you could be in there for days. I think we took about 10hrs 😉

Indeed, be interesting to see what the longest, not too contrived route you could do it by is. Include the Brownley round-trip maybe? One for a fitter man than me I fear though. :surrender:

1970s for me.

Much as described by the previous post, I went down Pendarves by informal arrangement with a shift boss; when we went to Sheffield on Field Week we took the bus driver with us down Winsford and an NCB colliery. Wouldn't get away with that now.

very few abandoned mines were locked and the ones that were, were easy pickings and no-one much cared. You could still camp pretty much where you liked, away from the main tourist spots

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80s for me as the accessible places seemed to deteriorate quickly in the 90s in the peak and alot of access vanished.. pre that I was not around...

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I'm going to have to vote for now, purely because I wasn't alive for most of the 60's and 70's. 😉

Ask me again in 2030.

For me it has to be the 1980's .

I started exploring in 81 then stopped in 89. Access to almost anywhere including working mines was easy.

In Derbyshire the large spar mines of Long Rake & Ladywash had only just closed, both around 1980-81, both mines were still in the most part in good condition, with plenty of original atrefacts in situ. The still working mines of Sallet Hole & Watersaw, if you turned up to the mine on the late shift & spoke to the shift boss, he used to allow us in to watch what was going on. Most of the large drainage soughs were still open, if you wanted a wet trip! & we did.

We had several official trips courtesy of the NCB into the Nottingham coal mines, usually on a Sunday , when mostly maintenance was going on.

Up north around Nenthead, again the situation with the old lead mines was pretty good. Also a few of the British Steel spar mines were still operating, access could be arranged into some of these, although this usually invloved a bottle or two.

We never travelled very far into North wales for some reason & so did not get to the slate mines. We did however go as far as the Mold area & the Halkyn lead mines system.
The headframes were still standing on the main working shafts, with rows of small mine tubs all over the place, sadly that is not the case now, with almost everything removed.

Having restarted exploring again only last year, I have been suprised at the rapid deterioration of many of my old haunts, indeed several have little or no access at all now, many are flooded or infilled, virtually nothing is working bar one spar mine that I can think of.

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Before Wellington and Jane stopped pumping in Cornwall. Prior to 1990. Vast areas of mines had their water levels lowered hugely. 1990 was pre plug-mania as well.

Some really interesting comments there :thumbup:

If I could pick a decade to explore I guess it would have to be Welsh slate in the late 70s to early 80s.

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I'd second Mr.RL's comments there: the lower levels of the likes of Oakeley, Croesor, Rhosydd etc are lost forever, albeit only due to flooding.

Whilst what's left gives a decent idea of what was once there' decay and roof falls have changed a lot of places - it's the deeper workings that tend to be in better condition, yet these are the flooded ones.

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Brakeman your description of the 80s in Derbyshire/Notts spot on... it was a quite a good time how you put it. Like you say the collieries were good on a Sunday and imagine trying to bunk your way down somewhere like Moorgreen or Pyehill today (elf and safety would av a fit!!!)... Like you say the soughs were all good to go and most stuff accessible, I had some memorable trips around Ashover, Crich, and Matlock/Cromford and am pleased to have seen what I have... :thumbsup:

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I'm not sure whether to retract my comment about mines pumping. I gather there what is now a bit of flooded stoping used to be a hole hundreds of meters deep. I recall someone saying something about when Crofty were pumping that a stone would take about 12 seconds to get to the bottom of the shaft......take a while for the sound to get back up as well!

I don't particularly like abseiling and swinging in over enormous voids, there is something very wrong about it. The prospect of finding a suitable shaft in the area when Crofty are pumping is minimal, but with a 1km or so hole below you....pass.

I think health and safety dogma was preceeded by old people dogma. Old mines are dangerous and you should never go near one or touch anything.....you shouldn't even think about it. I wonder if today's health and safety overkill have made people take bigger risks.......

Stuey I think you are so right... I remember owd'uns telling us "You don't want to be doin that" which made us more curious, then we went to "You are not allowed to do that" which I must admit makes stuff even more intriguing and prompts the question why.... so you are probably right, it is a bit of Curiosity Killing the Cat but usually without the killing bit, but it really does make many wan't to go and look down that local shaft or av a crawl round the local adit or a look round the ole gasworks!.
The problem is that in elf & safety, doing risk assessments etc, councils and the like start with the premise that if it can go wrong it will and that everybody is stupid...then seek to justify that statement thus forcing themselves to spend huge sums of money capping shafts and gating adits, burying sites, fencing stuff off etc etc ...just in case... but also so that they can be seen to have carried out their "duty of care". In other countries you will see a sign (only in the local language) saying enter at your own risk, or danger keep out and perhaps a small fence unless the working is in a particularly populated or sensitive area such as a tourist area!

In the real world of industry, design etc risk is calculated not assumed.

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I started in the early seventies - nineteen seventies that is - and there was so much stuff open and available it was hard to decide where to go next. SRT was in it's early days and kit seemed a lot more expensive and harder to locate than today.
Sometimes it was one SRT kit and three explorers. I learned SRT using a Texas rig and didn't graduate to Frog untill I bought my own kit a year or so later.
Shafts were protected by just drill steels hammered in around the collar and barbed wire strung around between them. No one ever came to any grief and kids were warned to stay away which generally they did.
I think for all the hazards, there was less risk in those days and todays safety consciousness is more of an over cautious perception of danger. You don't need a bloke with a clipboard and hard hat to tell you that you might hurt yourself if you fall into an open shaft. :smartass:
The authorities are quite happy to cap shafts in the name of public safety, but you can still wander up to an old calciner and collect a big bag of arsenic with no problems at all.
bl**dy nanny state! :curse:
We all explored as kids and most times you knew the risks and dangers involved; you lived life in other words and yes, curiosity may have killed the cat,but it was satisfaction that brought it back! :thumbsup:

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Both sides to every H&S story. I remember, must have been late 70's, going into upper level of Cligga Head. Access was wide open on all the levels there then. There are long drops in Cligga from the upper levels.
Generally in Cornwall and Devon mine access was pretty free and easy into loads of mines and friendly landowners then.
The downside of free and easy.... a week after we went into Cligga two inexperienced German tourists just wandered in and fell down a winze. Both killed.
For us the 70's was a good decade for exploring, for those tourists it was not so good. H&S can be good and bad.

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