[photo]Allenheads-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-018[/photo]

There is another decline to the right of this one, can anyone tell me what it is called and the relationship between the two?

Thanks.

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While we're on the subject, who's dug this out ?
[photo]Allenheads-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-59452[/photo]

[photo]Allenheads-Lead-Mine-User-Album-Image-72516[/photo]

I was going to assume NPHT but I thought they were in limbo at the moment.

I think the photo says it was NPHT, but I would assume before they went pop. Scrap that, it was them that cleared the undergrowth.

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The smaller decline next to the Beaumont runs down parallel(ish) to water.
It was the egress I believe. Nice air winch and a small bit of false floor but otherwise not of much interest I'm afraid.

The dug out enterance was the original spiral decline into the lead workings. I gather the new main decline cut it in half and it no longer goes very far.

Ah, OK I had a friend who actually had a workshop in the mine yard (unfortunately died since) and he started getting pally with the guy who ran the site, and we got official permission to go down the 2nd Decline, got some nice photos and as you described. Under the false floor there seemed to be a way on, it looked like a spill way or ore chute??

I suppose I should post the pics under PU.

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I suppose I should post the pics under PU.

And unmention the fact you've just told everyone you've been in. :lol:

Don't trust what I say, I'm a compulsive liar.

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Ah, OK I had a friend who actually had a workshop in the mine yard (unfortunately died since) and he started getting pally with the guy who ran the site, and we got official permission to go down the 2nd Decline, got some nice photos and as you described. Under the false floor there seemed to be a way on, it looked like a spill way or ore chute??

I suppose I should post the pics under PU.

Drops down to the main decline I think, now concealed behind the timbering at the bottom. Not sure of its original purpose.

Who did you know in the mine yard? PM me if you prefer.
I know some of the lads there pretty well

The Horse Track was cleared by the Allenheads Trust. they plan to have an interpretation panel by the entrance.

The fall which blocks further access was there in 1970 before BSC started work.

Under the mine yard are a series of tunnels draining water into Haugh Level. Prior to BSC, there were three very rotten waterwheels. Access to the tunnels was via a manhole in the yard and a shallow shaft in the garden of the house at the southwest end of the yard ( by the bend in the road).

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The smaller incline was used for access by the BSC guys, the larger one was a haulage level. In the little museum up the track past the pub there's some info on the mine viz. a model of the site during the Beaumont period, a 3D wire model of the levels including the inclines and a few pictures and explanations of what went on there up until the 1970's.

Manxman

Mr Mike, you should speak to Neil, Mike's brother from GL, some years ago, he and some of his mates had the hydraulic engine running that's at Allandale and i'm pretty sure he knows the mines quite well, he may well be able to furnish you with some interesting facts.

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The two inclines at Beaumont (Allenheads) Mine were usually termed the Main Incline and the Man-riding Incline. They were driven in parallel at the start with the Man-riding Incline at a shallower angle until it reached a suitable level in relation to the Main Incline. The Man-riding Incline then turned left until it was over the centre line of the Main Incline. It then continued down at the same gradient as the main Incline. A rise was driven to connect the two at 284 ft down the main Incline (approx. 300 ft in the Man-riding Incline) so that material produced by driving the latter could be dropped down for easier haulage out of the mine. Prior to that everything had to be double handled via two winches one at the entrance and one at the start of the steeper section. Both inclines were connected to the Main Haulage Level in the mine in the Great Limestone.

The layout can be seen on the model in the Allenheads Heritage Centre which was made under my direction around 1970 by the technical staff in the Mineral Resources Section of the British Steel Corporation General Steels Division Research Organisation at Swinden Laboratories, Rotherham, using the W B Lead Mines Abandonment Plans (MRO No 3608) at 40 ft to one inch as the source. The model used welding rod which was a convenient size for the drifts and brass sheet for the flats. The colour coding is as per the W B Lead system in which levels are coded according to geology rather than height. The coding was as follows:

Stratigraphic Horizon - Colour Code

Base of Low Slate Sill - Gamboge
Base of Firestone Sill - Scarlet Lake
Top of Little Limestone - Burnt Umber
Top of Great Limestone - Burnt Sienna
Top of Quarry Hazle - Cobalt
Base of Nattrass Gill Hazle - Indian Red
Top of Scar Limestone - Purple
Top of Whin Sill * - Light Green
Base of Whin Sill - Dark Green

*Shown below the Tyne Bottom Limestone in its position at Slitt Shaft.

The flats were coded as:

High Flat - Sky Blue.
Middle Flat - Solid vertical blue hatching.
Low Flat - Pecked horizontal blue hatching

A photo of the original W B Lead Mine Key has been uploaded on the Allenheads Mine Historic Photos thread.

More details about this system mat be found in the Friends of Killhope Newsletter No 78 (September 2011) pp 12-19.

Dave Greenwood

Pete,

I have just posted a photo of a fair copy of an original W B Lead Mines plan and section of the Horse Track and Waterwheels on the Allenheads Mine Historic Photos thread. It was used as an illustration in a BSC Research Organisation report.

I also visited the upper waterwheel via the shaft in someone's back yard around 1969 with Bob Guthrie and John MacPherson, both from NMRS.

Dave Greenwood.

Dave

What a marvellous plan. John MacPherson's son has been scanning John's slide collection. I don't think that he has any underground in the waterwheel area.

None in the Elford collection either.

Pete

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I am pretty certain that either JMac or John McNeil's collection, will contain photos of said waterwheels.
When I saw them, myself, only 2 were intact.
Since the feed of the first went to the second, and so on, the wheels were on top of each other.
The second one was almost buried.

Dave

What a marvellous plan. John MacPherson's son has been scanning John's slide collection. I don't think that he has any underground in the waterwheel area.

None in the Elford collection either.

Pete

Cough! cough!

Pete,

There are two pics of at least one of the waterwheels in the historical album, both rather poor because of a)age of pic and b) humidity at the time. Yorkshireman did a fine photoshop job on the one with a person at the side of the wheel. My brother and I remember going down Gin Hill Shaft, once at least, and from the perspective of 40+ years ago I think two or three were visible.

Christwigg told me that there are other photos of Fawside etc behind the Friends of Killhope's facebook firewall, so I've not seen them. I've put up all of JFM's photos as far as I know and as one is in Crankey Level then all the wheels must have been dewatered for some time at least. It remains a bit of a sadness that it may be that Dad's two photos were the only ones ever taken of the wheels.

Jim

Jim

My mistake - forgot!

At Nenthead, we also have some images underground taken by John Ceiriog-Hughes, mainly of Frazers Hush.

Pete

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Ah, OK I had a friend who actually had a workshop in the mine yard (unfortunately died since) and he started getting pally with the guy who ran the site, and we got official permission to go down the 2nd Decline, got some nice photos and as you described. Under the false floor there seemed to be a way on, it looked like a spill way or ore chute??

I suppose I should post the pics under PU.

I did manage to go all the way to the collapse in the Horse Decline a couple of years ago before they gated it, but your right does not go very far, not far in it takes a 180 declining turn to the left, then continues on down for about another 75 to 100 feet before reaching a collapse.

Nice cobbled floor with good wear from the pony hoofs.

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The flats were coded as:

High Flat - Sky Blue.
Middle Flat - Solid vertical blue hatching.
Low Flat - Pecked horizontal blue hatching

this has just reminded me, among a big pile of plans acquired not so long back, I found a little key, listing the names of the inks to be used in relation to specific strata. the same colours being used for almost the whole history of the beaumont WB mining enterprises in these parts.

I should scan it in at some point, as the key is a work of art in itself....the key goes like this:

Stratigraphic Horizon Colour Code
Base of low Slate Sill Gamboge
Base of Firestone Sill Burnt Umber
Top of Great Limestone Burnt Sienna
Top of Quarry Hazle Cobalt
Base of Natrass Gill Hazle Indian Red
Top of Scar Limestone Purple
Top of Whin Sill Light Green
Base of Whin Sill Dark Green

was a bit of a eureka moment for me when suddenly all these coloured lines on section and plan views suddenly made perfect sense

(everybody suddenly goes and google Gamboge!)

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Snip

was a bit of a eureka moment for me when suddenly all these coloured lines on section and plan views suddenly made perfect sense

(everybody suddenly goes and google Gamboge!)

Ah, not me.
My granddad always proclaimed a preference for humour "with a Gamboge tint", as he didn't like blue humour.
I think he was long gone, before I eventually found out what it meant. 😉

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