Rustynail
13-01-2012, 11:18 AM
Another of my explores from last year. Hopefully I'll be doing a new one in a week or so, with mistericeman. I've had an arsedness failure recently but it's a new year and my reserves of arsedness are built up again. Anyway, on with the report.
Church North is an abandoned ironstone mine in Northamptonshire. Back in the day, when the British steel industry didn't rely on foreign ores, it was places like this that supplied them. Production from Church Mine North, an adit driven into the hillside at the end of a quarry, known as Marsh's pit, began in 1923. The mine, along with others owned by the company (Islip Iron Ore Co. later taken over by Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd.) was laid out by a German engineer Hans Wolf . Headings were driven at an angle of 50 deg. to one another to give diamond-shaped pillars in order to increase the amount of stone that could be extracted over the usual 90 deg and square pillar method. The ironstone was hand-loaded into 2ft. 6in. gauge tubs and hauled by horses to a tipping dock near the adit where it was tipped at into 3ft. gauge railway wagons for transport to the nearby Islip furnaces. By 1933 the mine had been connected to Church mine (from then on known as Church Mine South) and the adits at North being used only for ventilation, all production leaving from the adits, about a mile away, at South.
In the mid 1930s diesel locomotives replaced horses on the main haulage runs with up to five being used in the mine and all built by Ruston & Hornsby Ltd. of Lincoln. In the 1940s up to eighty men were working in two shifts. The mine closed in 1947.
Visited with a bunch of mates with whom I regularly explore. We'd visited this mine before but on this occasion, instead of aimlesly mooching about, we had an objective -Find the bottom of the ventilation shaft. No pictures of it had ever been seen on teh interwebz before our visit and we suspect that, despite the mine being known to explorers, no one had visited that particular part of the mine since the survey that was done in 1948 as part of the abandoment plan was completed.
Unfortunately this mine has since been sealed by the land owner tipping tons of soil and rock into the access so there won't be any more return visits. We were planning a return, using inflatable boats, to find the southern adits from the inside.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/church059.jpg
^ The surface view from after the last visit. From surface level it's another 100ft. to the bottom.
It's about half a mile from the adit entrance to the bottom of the shaft and about three quarters of that is in water. Not long after entering the water it came over the tops of our welloes and as none of us had waders, we just had to man-up and get wet. There are some BIG collapses deep inside the mine and so a lot of detours were needed - some meant waist-high water but we eventually got to the objective and back.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft003.jpg
^ One of the major collapses.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft004.jpg
^ I don't think anyone has been this far in for a long time. That stuff was weird. It was like a crust on the surface of the water and it crunched as we broke it. When we came back most of it had sunk and I guess it takes a long time to form, whatever it is.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft007.jpg
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft009.jpg
We thought we'd nailed it but this wall meant another detour. The air was fine throughout and this little side run was the only bit where the gas detector showed anything less than normal O2. It also detected inflammables here so we didn't hang about.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft010.jpg
^ Nearly there now. This sticky orange mud was all over and when the water got deeper again there were loads of bubbles coming up and there was a very slight smell of rotten eggs (H2S) but the gas detector said it was still OK.
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g241/kevlandy/CHURCH%20NORTH%20AIRSHAFT%2005%2006%202011/067.jpg
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft012.jpg
^ At the bottom of the shaft.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft013.jpg
Got it!
Church North is an abandoned ironstone mine in Northamptonshire. Back in the day, when the British steel industry didn't rely on foreign ores, it was places like this that supplied them. Production from Church Mine North, an adit driven into the hillside at the end of a quarry, known as Marsh's pit, began in 1923. The mine, along with others owned by the company (Islip Iron Ore Co. later taken over by Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd.) was laid out by a German engineer Hans Wolf . Headings were driven at an angle of 50 deg. to one another to give diamond-shaped pillars in order to increase the amount of stone that could be extracted over the usual 90 deg and square pillar method. The ironstone was hand-loaded into 2ft. 6in. gauge tubs and hauled by horses to a tipping dock near the adit where it was tipped at into 3ft. gauge railway wagons for transport to the nearby Islip furnaces. By 1933 the mine had been connected to Church mine (from then on known as Church Mine South) and the adits at North being used only for ventilation, all production leaving from the adits, about a mile away, at South.
In the mid 1930s diesel locomotives replaced horses on the main haulage runs with up to five being used in the mine and all built by Ruston & Hornsby Ltd. of Lincoln. In the 1940s up to eighty men were working in two shifts. The mine closed in 1947.
Visited with a bunch of mates with whom I regularly explore. We'd visited this mine before but on this occasion, instead of aimlesly mooching about, we had an objective -Find the bottom of the ventilation shaft. No pictures of it had ever been seen on teh interwebz before our visit and we suspect that, despite the mine being known to explorers, no one had visited that particular part of the mine since the survey that was done in 1948 as part of the abandoment plan was completed.
Unfortunately this mine has since been sealed by the land owner tipping tons of soil and rock into the access so there won't be any more return visits. We were planning a return, using inflatable boats, to find the southern adits from the inside.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/church059.jpg
^ The surface view from after the last visit. From surface level it's another 100ft. to the bottom.
It's about half a mile from the adit entrance to the bottom of the shaft and about three quarters of that is in water. Not long after entering the water it came over the tops of our welloes and as none of us had waders, we just had to man-up and get wet. There are some BIG collapses deep inside the mine and so a lot of detours were needed - some meant waist-high water but we eventually got to the objective and back.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft003.jpg
^ One of the major collapses.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft004.jpg
^ I don't think anyone has been this far in for a long time. That stuff was weird. It was like a crust on the surface of the water and it crunched as we broke it. When we came back most of it had sunk and I guess it takes a long time to form, whatever it is.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft007.jpg
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft009.jpg
We thought we'd nailed it but this wall meant another detour. The air was fine throughout and this little side run was the only bit where the gas detector showed anything less than normal O2. It also detected inflammables here so we didn't hang about.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft010.jpg
^ Nearly there now. This sticky orange mud was all over and when the water got deeper again there were loads of bubbles coming up and there was a very slight smell of rotten eggs (H2S) but the gas detector said it was still OK.
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g241/kevlandy/CHURCH%20NORTH%20AIRSHAFT%2005%2006%202011/067.jpg
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft012.jpg
^ At the bottom of the shaft.
http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt319/rustynail2009/Churchshaft013.jpg
Got it!