Sometime ago we had a thread re Knockers and the likes underground... After talking to Roy Morton re Ding Dong yesterday I thought I'd ask what mining places above gound you all find eerie, my fave being Ding Dong on a windy dark day followed by the very bottom of the Marke Valley along the stream anytime.... but I find that bit of moor around the Ding Dong Greenburrow shaft very odd and I alway find myself looking round as if watched.. as do others I have spoken to,... Over to you...

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Not strictly above ground, but ...........a group of us found a set of paw prints in the silt along the horse level of a mine at Mohope, North Pennines. They went in as far as we could go, which was a fair distance. The animal must have been big as the paw prints were huge. I've heard of mine explorers taking their dogs underground for company, but what was very odd was that there were no prints going in the other direction i.e. out. And there is only one way in.

Not strictly above ground, but ...........a group of us found a set of paw prints in the silt along the horse level of a mine at Mohope, North Pennines. They went in as far as we could go, which was a fair distance. The animal must have been big as the paw prints were huge. I've heard of mine explorers taking their dogs underground for company, but what was very odd was that there were no prints going in the other direction i.e. out. And there is only one way in.

I has similar in a level in North Wales, badger tracks in the mud at the side of waiste deep water.
Heading back and forth but not out of the exit which had a high damn in that no badger could have climbed.

Found the badger when I stood in its submerged remains, the stench it stirred up was pretty foul.

Back to the North Pennines, there are some mighty big animals wandering around those fells that you wouldn't want to meet in the dark!!!!!

There have been sightings around here of a panther-like animal (similar to the beast of Bodmin - but that's another story) observed over a wide area, but not, as far as I am aware, over at Mohope. Whether it enjoys a bit of SRT is debatable. :lol:

The paw thing is interesting... the reason I don't like the bottom of the Marke Valley is similar.... 10 years ago I was down there with a lady friend from a local company, she liked the walks when I was down that area and we had a very strange walk that day... On the cylinder block of the salisbury shaft was a dead sheep.. ripped open and very chewed up and fresh!! We dropped down the spoil heap and started up the very overgrown valley looking for wheelpits etc and found another.. even fresher sheep ... neck ripped out (lots of blood) and you could see where it had been jumped and rolled down the bank... There was not a bird singing and there was zero wild life unusually... so we pushed on then we found two or more .. lots of bones (gnawed) one other dismembered but what we found next settled it... on a siver birch tree nearby (maybe 30 feet) where scratch marks, but they were a good 4-5 foot up the tree and made by wide deep claws.... We left as my walking friend was visibly concerned and if i'm honest so was I inside... the place simply did not feel right!! We got back to Minions and a local bobby was just coming out of the Cafe... he said must be foxes (My initial reply was "it must be driving a tank then" was unpopular) we said "no way as what was the scratching stuff then"? "dogs then I guess?" he replied. Since when did dogs not just kill but eat the whole sheep? A local then chipped in saying a farmer (near Craddock Moor) had stated categorically he had seen a large Cat at dusk on his lane & lots of sheep were missing of late.
I contacted Beast Watch and some other groups and at the time this was a sighting hotspot up past the Cheesewring.... and to the North.
I wasn't going to write this up on the grounds people think you're a bit odd with this wild cats stuff but what I saw was not dogs versus sheep as my family have a sheep farm and dogs will kill a sheep but certainly don't do the level of damage we saw... plus it would have to have been a big dog or several in a pack which would have been noticed. The scratching thing... I simply don't get.... no elaboration just what we saw. If I can find it I will post the pic of the scratch marks with my friend standing by them for scale.

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I lived on Alston Moor for around 12 years.
I have no doubt at all that there is at least one big cat (probably several) loose in the area.
By big I mean, black, a good 8 feet plus, nose to tail and eyes about 10 inches apart. Make of that whay you will 🙂

In truth I later had contact with a few folk via Beast Watch (as I was intrigued) re the Bodmin stuff inc locals, one who had a veeeery long big dark cat jump in front of his landrover headlights then just bounce up and over the other hedge on the other side... this was in a Cornish lane so you can imagine the height of the walled hedges! He said he nearly wet himself... he registered his sighting with cops at 11.30 that night and was quite shook up but heard no more... the sighting was near Crows Nest.... near Caradon

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I have no reason to doubt that there are big cats around down in Cornwall. Think about it... if there were only 5 St Bernard dogs in Cornwall then no one is going to be seeing them much are they? The same applies to large cats, the sightings would be few and far between because there just isnt very many of them and they are good at hiding and very fast. If they don't want to be seen then Cornwall is a good place for them to be! I've seen some very large paw tracks in various places in Cornwall and I am certain that they were not dogs.

Anyway... on the subject or eerie places...

I've always found Wheal Busy to be a very eerie place, I've always visualised the many generations of people who once worked there and how lively and busy it must have once been. To see it dead silent and empty has always given it a creepy feeling, like an old ghost town. Once the very heart of Chasewater now a deserted wasteland.

I get the same feeling from Poldice, Unity Wood, Wheal Maid, Consols and United.

Stragely though I really love that feeling as I have always been a lover of the supernatural and ghostly aspects of Cornwall. It's part of what drew me to the mines in the first place... that lonely and desolate feeling of a place that was once the pride and joy of many but is now just a shell of it's former self. You can't help but feel some of that sadness that the people who made the places what they are would feel if they saw them today.

Beautifully summed up... Unity Wood especially before messing with was an eerie old place I liked! You got the haunted feeling of years of toil and loss at your feet! I get Wheal Busy too..., I like the Haytor Quarries on Dartmoor, Windswept and lonely, eerie- but once ringing to the sound of the quarries and labour.... good this! 🙂

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I've seen a big black cat at 7.00am in early summer. It was as tall as my waist ~3ft and 8 - 10ft long nose to tail, but the most distinguishing feature was it's rather small and out of proportion head

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Tezarchaeon, I scribbled/wrote this once back at my hotel in late Nov 98, after visiting Unity Wood on a grey, wind swept day and seeing the two engine house above me. It was in the back of my photo notes and summed my thoughts up at the time...

Unity Wood

Chimneys on the skyline,
Point to Cornish skies,
Engine house in silence stares,
Across the barren boughs,

Engines labour no more here,
Just crows on crumbling walls,
A place of empty window frames,
Above the darkened halls,

Below the silent hammers ring,
In granite long forgotten,
Black waters hide the darkest stope,
Vast timbers deep and rotten,

I stay a while in silence here,
Amongst the burrow gorse,
To picture labours long forgot,
Where once the stamps did roar,

Open shafts do call to me,
Of headgears turned to rust,
Of candle headed tribute men,
Bal maidens poor in dust.

Then from my thoughts I stir again,
Of this place I love the most,
And once more walk past buddle bare,
To the moan of friendly ghosts.

The End
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I like the way you worded that, nice and gritty and bleak. It's quite reflective of what you do feel when you are around such things.

It's a shame that allot of poetry based on the mines down here is such utter rubbish written by people with no idea in the slightest or it comes out sounding ridiculous filled with all that 'Cousin Jack' and 'Pasties' nonsense.

I've written a few bits here and there in my old lyrics notebooks. I need to go around and write a few more bits again, bringing the notebook with me instead of comming back and loosing some of that inspiration you get when actually there!

Wrote mine in Pencubit Country House Hotel after a long bath and a few Brandy's... I remember doing killifreth and Busy that day to and I got soaked arriving at hotel with a chill... Again!!!

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Stragely though I really love that feeling as I have always been a lover of the supernatural and ghostly aspects of Cornwall. It's part of what drew me to the mines in the first place... that lonely and desolate feeling of a place that was once the pride and joy of many but is now just a shell of it's former self. You can't help but feel some of that sadness that the people who made the places what they are would feel if they saw them today.

I’m not sure I completely agree with that. Pride, that they most certainly had in abundance but joy, I wonder. And extract from one of the many interviews in the 1864 PP Medical Report on the Condition of Miners in West Cornwall, T. Peacock. The miner was suffering from TB.

Worked underground for two 2 years, at South Basset mine. It is 8 years ago. Worked in the 40 level under adit. “The air was hot and bad, and the powder smoke lay very heavy. I was quite well when 1 went down first. I was taken ill there with weakness in the legs, shortness of breath, and tightness in the chest. 1 worked a month after I first felt. ill, and then 'Was obliged to give up, and was laid up for 7 months.”
Since that time has \\'orked at the surface, but for the last 7 months has been laid up again with the same complaint,
“The place where I worked was draughty and cold. I caught cold, and it brought on slow fever. I recovered but the cough remains.”

In other words the conditions down the mines were appalling with children as young as seven working there, with thousands dying prematurely. So much so that at one time Illogan had the highest proportion of widows in the country. Plus living conditions were not much better (see the 1853 sanitation report for Redruth ).

The point I’m trying to make is that it may well be unsafe to assume the attitude of the 19th century miners and their families towards what they achieved at great cost. Which is why it is incumbent on later generations, with a different perspective, to do everything they can to preserve the heritage and legacy left by those earlier generations.

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Anyway back on topic... Anyone got any Eerie places that stand out!

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Love the poem 🙂

One of the eeriest places I know of is where I work when I get called in out of hours.

The place is fine during the day but at night the place just gives me the collywobbles, can't explain why, it's a normal modernish building on an industrial estate. :confused:

I don't usually get any such feelings underground even when alone, or anywhere else for that matter....

Ian, that poem has forced me to view you in a new light. Eloquent and moving.

Nice one.

JR

PS this honest admiration does not set a precedent. 😉

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One of the eeriest places I know of is where I work when I get called in out of hours.

The place is fine during the day but at night the place just gives me the collywobbles, can't explain why, it's a normal modernish building on an industrial estate. :confused:

Maybe you are frightened of the roof coming down on your head.... :lol:

I lived on Alston Moor for around 12 years.
I have no doubt at all that there is at least one big cat (probably several) loose in the area.
By big I mean, black, a good 8 feet plus, nose to tail and eyes about 10 inches apart. Make of that whay you will 🙂

Could it be..... JAGUARMAN? ..... sorry coul'nt resist that one 😞

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I lived on Alston Moor for around 12 years.
I have no doubt at all that there is at least one big cat (probably several) loose in the area.
By big I mean, black, a good 8 feet plus, nose to tail and eyes about 10 inches apart. Make of that whay you will 🙂

Could it be..... JAGUARMAN? ..... sorry coul'nt resist that one 😞

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear
Thats bad ::)