Basically the whole area has a dire water table and at the rear of the site in the valley bottom it basically floods hence if you go to my Butterley Company Railway you can see a huge culvert built by Butterley to drain surface water.
No 4 pumping pit was basically there to keep High Holborn, Britain, Forty Horse etc working dry. The site owner Darren Fretwell (owner of Golden Valley Caravan and Camping Park)was extremely open and gave me the full tour and told me what they found on site at the number 4 pumping pit. It appears water was lifted to surface by a Cornish type engine and then reservoired with some going to the engine boilers the vast majority going into a brick line culvert which crosses coach road (NNE direction) and I believe emptied into the reservoir that fed the cromford canal, now dry above the canal tunnel portal. The underground culvert is traceable and we had some covers off.and there is very little water now.
There were 13 shafts at Tanyard ranging in depth from a few metres to the deepest (no 4 pit pumping) at 154m deep & 3.6m dia.
Darren kindly gave me the BCA plan with a copy of shaft details which I will post in due course. There are no adits on site.
There is a small fenced opening awaiting filling of slight depth and one obvious concrete cap over a 2m dia coal/iron shaft.
Whilst the loss of so much Industrial Archaeology on the site is sad, it has been nicely adapted and is a great use of what was probably an aweful piece of land to reclaim. it has taken the guy 4 years.
The line of the earlier outram plateway/gangway to High Holborn thru the site and at the rear of Knowts hall is very traceable and there is another Ironstone/coal working next to it. There were also drilled stoneblocks in that area as well as a stone wall loading bank. I think this route was the original to the pits on that ridge.
Also at tanyard their was a tramway straight across the top of the spoil, narrow gauge and lightly laid it went from the pumping station to a dump point at the southern end of the site overlooking knowts Hall. It was in the way and was weighed in.
Locally I have only found 2 drainage adits but both are well away from Golden Valley on the other side of Ripley.
The only open shaft is in the field to rear of the symetrical cottage on left on the junction of coach road upto Ripley. It has a beehive brick top and hums of sulphur from the water.. totally flooded of course.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!