A Little Trundle Up the Hush

I visited Brian today and we had a little wander up Dowgang Hush at Nenthead. We only did, maybe a mile and a half, but with 400 feet of ascent and lots of poking around.
Roughly at the top of one of the branches of the hush are the remains of an old coal mine.

I noticed that the coal mine shop or, maybe it was an office  or a workshop (it has a fireplace) was covered in bright orange lichen. I’ve not seen this before. Any lichen experts out there?

Secondly, Brian was turning over bits of the spoil heap, which was mainly lumps of shale, when he announced that he’d found a fossil. On closer inspection, the spoil heap was, in fact littered with oval-shaped rocks with ripples down the side. These were fossilised trees. The ripples are, or were the bark and these things were just a bit thicker than sapling size. I took a photo. In fact, I took a fossil.  Its about ten inches long by two or three inches wide and weighs about four kg. That’s the wife’s Christmas present sorted out anyway.

What?
Look, it’s 350 million years old…..

We returned by a different route and only slightly disturbed the couple of kids camped by the pond near the mine.
Aren’t the kids supposed to be at school just now?

Grooving at Groverake

I read this book the other week about flourspar. This may well not seem to be a terribly exciting subject, and, indeed, it did help me sleep on a couple of occasions. But it did tell me all about how it was an extremely common and once valuable mineral, especially in certain parts of Upper Weardale until some inscrutable eastern inscrutes dumped vast quantities on the European flourspar market and the local mines went out of business. Unlike most mineral mining, this happened as recently as the late 1980’s/ early 1990’s.

And so me and Brian turned up at Groverake, just a bit West of Rookhope and climbed up the line of the vein out on to Redburn Common. There were lots of big holes. Craters, really. And these had a few outcrops of red and yellow rocks in them which in turn had shiny bits. On inspection (with a big ‘ammer), most of these turned out to be either flourspar (flourite) or lead ore (galena) there was, in fact, a lot of galena.

We explored the vein and the holes up on to the moor where we discovered that we were very close to the Rookhope Flue.

This flue is over a mile long, crosses a local river on a kind of viaduct, and climbs up the hillside to the summit of Redburn Common. The idea is to send lead-heavy fumes up the flue which should condense on the walls for later removal by the insertion of a small child with a sharp pick and a bucket. Nowadays, this would be seen as cruel. In future we’ll probably view the feeding of saturated fats and sugar to children as cruel and not as the crime-prevention measure that it really is (kids are too fat and unfit to escape from the police after breaking a window or whatever)

Anyway, the top of the flue is a fine place to sit in the warm sun listening to springtime moorland birds and putting the world to rights.

After a while, we retraced back down the line of craters and bashed a few more geological samples.

Then we explored the nearby mine buildings. The main mine was abandoned around 1989 and the buildings still contain discarded clothing in the pit showers (mainly socks and gloves, it would appear) – and there are still documents in the office which has, though , all,been thoroughly vandalised. This is archeology in the making. Birds have been nesting inside and the place has an odd an slightly unnerving atmosphere.

We visited the head gear where the cage was in its “up” position. The shaft below was tested for depth and a stone or two each took around seven seconds before a splash was heard. Tip: Don’t jump up and down on the covering of this shaft. The time taken to hit the water is sufficiently long for far too much thinking to be done. I would guess that most thoughts would centre around how the current situation was unlikely to have a happy outcome.

So we went to the pub at Allenheads, and then the one at Garrigill after seizing a rear brake in Alston Front Street (worra smell…) Seems OK, now , though, but I went over a bump on Killhope, so that probably unseized it, I expect.

I think we did about 2 miles with about 300 feet of uphill, but that really wasn’t the point of this, which was to poke around looking for minerals and doing some pontificating on the meaning of various holes and “things”

The vein is rich in galena. I expect that most of the flourites in deep underground as there’s not a vast amount on the surface. You can look at this stuff, by the way, but you can’t take any away.

Snowman abandoned after breakfast party

Team photo including diminutive snowman

My plans for walks are in somewhat of a mess due to deep soft snow which is lying very deeply and softly just about everywhere I’d planned to walk. So I was really pleased to receive an invitation from Brian at Nenthead to join this annual underground breakfast scoffing session. This annual tomfoolery being a bit of a get-together for the Cumbrian Mines Rescue Organisation. A mine may well smell of sausages for quite a while after one of these trips.

I squitterred the knipemobile up Weardale and over to Nenthead, passing two police signs that said the road was closed – but it seemed OK, if a bit quiet – and I arrived safely at Nenthead only to forgo the impossible drive up the steep cobbles to Chez Brian. I walked up the hill. It was very slippery.

Gilda and Brian (before picture…)

Here, Brian distributed helmets and caving suits for me and his partner, Gilda, and we loaded up packs with essential underground stuff such as stoves and gas, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomato ketchup and, generally stuff needed for a short but happy life of soaring cholesterol and cardiac nurses going (Tut!)

After a period of driving around on slippery snow, and a bit of kerfuffle about which hole we were going down, the Nenthead Chapel party were loaded into a land rover for a short and sobering drive over moors deep in snow to arrive a few nano-seconds later at the entrance to Smallcleuch Mine.

Gilda cooks up a storm

And we entered and paddled along, sometimes crawling, sometimes getting a bit dislocated, but finally ending up in a large cavern known as “The Small Ballroom” This is not named after tight underwear such as you might get as a present on Christmas Day, but is the smaller version of “The Ballroom” – a much bigger cavern in which, it is said, a dinner for the local masonic lodge was once held. (around 1906,,,,?)

Jamie Oliver eat your heart out.

Brian unloaded the snowman that he’d smuggled in and it was duly decorated in a festive kind of manner. – And we celebrated to season by cooking and scoffing large quantities of fried breakfast, all of which was really very nice.

Warming the snowman

And so, after a few team photos, we were lead out by an easier way than the one we came in by – which took about an hour, I suppose – it all seemed impossibly complicated to me but we finally emerged blinking into a blinking blizzard.

There is much of interest in the holes – but one of the really interesting buts we came across was the hoof marks of (presumably) the last ponies in the mine for a short section between some rails. The area had been taped off but this had not prevented some prune from walking through the marks in his wellies.

Me and Gilda full of Full English

Once out, our manic landrover chauffuer made short work of the impossible drive back to Nenthead and after a short coffee break at Brian’s, I attempted to get the car back over Killhope Cross – and failed, partly due to the car in front coming to a slithering stop. One of the keys to success is not to stop, y’see….. The headlights/windscreen thing looked like that star wars screen saver thingy…

I ended up driving around by Hexham and Corbridge, which is quite a long way home. I doubt if the car would have made it down the other side of the pass anyway. But all’s well that, well,….ends, I suppose.

But what fun.

We lit a small fire for the snowman, to keep it warm as we abandoned it to it’s dark, damp and lonely fate. Its a hard life, being a snowman.

More South Tynedale Holes

I cudder gone to Dent with Mr Banfield and his party and walked to Ingleton in the rain, but , No – Brian had already booked me for this little trundle down yet another North Pennine leadmine.

Never go into a leadmine, folks, they is terrible dangerous.

But the sand-filled Knipemobile was parked in a puddle somewhere near Garrigill and we debouched to this little mine entrance which may well be Whitesike Mine or , possibly, Bentyfield – I’m not sure which.

Brian at the mine entrance

It was clear from the mucky water emanating from the hole and the open gate at the entrance that somebody was already inside. So we plunged forth down stone-arched passageways and, occasionally parts where there was just rough-hewn natural rock.

We crawled through a dig, held up by timber shoring and a bit of pipe and thence forward till the smell of fag smoke and the low rumble of voices could be heard.

Brian emerges from the crawl

We came across two diggers with shovels and a wheelbarrow – digging out the passage to make it bigger. Brian and one of the diggers smoked. The passage filled with bad air. (Don’t tell me smoking is dangerous 800 metres inside a collapsable lead mine)

Digger obscured by fag smoke (smoking is bad for you, children)

After a chat , we left and examined the various remarkable iron and flowstone-like formations.

Formation of iron stuff plus glove for scale

Brian pretends to look at some calcite formations

The sweet course was a short trip through a long culvert where the water was too deep for wellies and which came out in an ennormous hole with a waterfall and another culvert. We retraced and repaired to Nenthead for coffee.

Entering the culvert

The lower culvert

Whatever you do, don’t try this at home, folks, unless your life is an empty vessel like wot mine could be without an Eel Crag challinge…

The thing that strikes me about underground trips is that when you eventually emerge, blinking into daylight, no matter how driech it is, there's a warmth and overwhelming scent of pollen or grass or something, and there's the general hum of life and nature doing whatever it is that life and nature and stuff does.. Whatever it is, its a very friendly and warm and welcoming experience. I suppose its just life getting on with being life. Its great. Its fab. Its green and blue and sometimes a bit grey. Its the Pennines.

Incidentally, I appear to have gained Brian's wellies and, it seems, he must have mine.

Mud Pie Spectre Not seen In Lead Mine - Latest

Working on a rumour that one of the lesser-known holes in the ground in South Tynedale was haunted by the spirit of “t’owd man”* or , possibly some kind of underground demonic trog of the kind that used to have hit records back in the sixties. We determined to go and investigate and report our findings to Derek Acorah (apparently all of this chap’s ghosties have Scotty road accents…)
But, this spirit, or sprite sits in a far distant cavern and chucks mud pies at passing explorers. Then it follows the hapless cavers down the passage as they make their escape, growling and muttering curses; something about being accused of cheating at a World Mud Pie Chucking Contest back in the days men were men and mud was muddier than it is now, and Z Cars was on the telly.
This underground spirit is supposed to be wearing a pointed hat and ski-goggles , which, I agree with you, is unlikely in the extreme. But never mind, we explored for a kilometre or so of, sometimes shaky passage with an open mind. Not a good idea to be going poking metal poles at the roof in some spots inside this hole… as if anybody would….
As you can see from the photos, absolutely nothing was found. Each of the photos taken is, as you would expect, completely blank. The pic taken at the entrance is peculiarly blank
I don’t believe in stuff like that anyway….
Intelligent people aren’t supposed to be able to see anything anyway, it’s only supposed to appear to “special” people.
But we had a good time. The water in the mine is specially chilly and has unfortunate effects once it gets up around the waist. There’s also a hundred metres or so of very soft and deep mud. Lovely stuff, but it effectively removes your boots. Good exercise, though. The hole ends after about a kilometre in a small cavern with some kind of tank full of water in it.
At various points there are also shafts going up into the ceiling and/or down into the ground, one of which has a stream of daylight. (Unless you go down there at night. If you do this, though, you will need a torch.)
We finished off by paddling up Ash Gill. We would have swum up, but the water was perishing cold.
We repaired to the Miners Arms at Nenthead for a sip of tepid water and the lickings of a crisp packet.

* T’owd man (The old man) is the term usually used to refer to lead miners of old in a kind of generic way. You are always reminded of their presence in the past by their industry and, sometimes their graffiti or bits and pieces they left behind.

Slit Vein Holes Looked Into

Another ad-hoc old-blokes games trip. Brian rang last night, at a loose-end today and dying to tell us all about his trips to the Commons to talk about cybermoor.
We met at Charlie’s house and whilst Charles couldn’t be persuaded to abandon whatever it was he’d planned for the day, he did give us a cuppa and let us change into wet-stuff gear in his office. Wet-stuff gear, on this occasion, being shorts and t-shirt and cheapo boots.
And so, armed with helmets and lights and waterproof boxes for the cameras and car keys and whatever – we marched manfully off up through Slit Wood at Westgate, investigating bits of industrial archaeology and a geocache box on the way.
Eventually, we came to the first of our targets for the day – an old lead level with a removable wooden gate. Brian entered first and came out again shortly afterwards whilst I treated the local midgies to some blood. The I went in, covered the 100 metres or so of wet passageway and came out again. I made a video of both mine and Brian’s exits from the hole.
Then on to hole number two. There was a walker having a break here – and , it turned out that he’d worked with one of Brian’s neighbours. There’s no six degrees of separation in Co Durham – its usually no more that two….
We couldn’t get in the hole as it was barred and padlocked.
So, on to target three – a couple of culverts carrying the main beck, just next to the junction with the slit vein – an obvious spot when you know what to look for as its been deeply excavated. We entered the culvert and climbed down a small waterfall into water too deep to paddle and passed through the tunnel – returning shortly afterwards to investigate an undercutting of the revetments which headed towards a fenced-off shaft. This didn’t go very far and contained lots of loose rubble.
Having got wet, we descended by the wettest route possible – in the beck, climbing or sliding down small waterfalls and generally slipping around dangerously.
At three-ish, we decided that a pint of beer might be more fun, so we abandoned the beck for the footpath and , after changing behind Charlie’s bins, repaired to the Hare and Hounds for a bit of libating. We'll have to finish off walking down the beck later - there's some enormous pools lower down, and, maybe we could get under the main road and into the River Wear...(!)
A few pics and a video show the trip – have patience with the video.
Last of the Summer Wine stuff, this…

Holes are for looking into

Anybody who read this blog’s post about the footpath stuff I do for County Durham may well have noticed , in one of the pictures, a footbridge with a tunnel next to it. Or maybe not, eh?

I’ve walked over and passed this tunnel many times and wondered where it went. I thought it might be just a culvert.

Today, me and two other peri-geriatrics (Brian and Charlie) put on our wellies, found our torches and went for a look.

It turns out to be a stone-lined and arched tunnel carrying just a small trickle of water which goes towards some lead mine spoil heaps for , maybe just over 100 metres.
Inside, there’s a few little side passages, more like drains, really, and one which appears to have a door at the end, but which was too tight and wet to get very far into. Beyond the door, obviously, is a secret world where everybody wears green clothes and the King sits on a throne of robins, holding the Book of Moons in his right hand and a Bill Bryson book about Australia in the other - and is surrounded by maidens in floaty white frocks singing songs about the elf king’s daughter and wondering where Thomas the Rhymer has got to….. Or it could just be another wet and muddy passage.

After we’d come out, much muddier than when we went in, we paddled up the beck and found an old dam with some reconstruction going on and a leat, a wheel pit, some clinker, another culvert some bits of a Victorian teapot and a stalactite from deep underground.

Then we went for a cup of tea.

Its grand to poke around, looking into holes.


Its at Boltshope Burn near Blanchland – a very productive mine, bits of which were producing fluorspar in to the 1980’s. Which is quite remarkable.

A short but enjoyable indulgence

I’ve taken Martin’s comments in the previous posting as good advice. So this one is a short(ish) but enjoyable indulgence. (enjoyable for me anyway) I’m in a positive mood as the car has passed it’s MOT (after having had £200+ thrown at it) and we’ve moved one step closer to having my mum’s two doodlecat-type cats rehomed (more dosh...) So, for the time being, they’re safe in a plush cattery run by a woman who seems to be obsessed by cats - always a good sign. And I’m on me hols in Wales from Saturday.

So here’s some less than serious underground pictures taken in leadmines at Nenthead. Such silliness…..

There likely be just one more posting this week and then there’ll be a two week interval. I’m just mentioning this so that you can organise something interesting to do whilst I’m away. I won’t be doing any mobile blogging due to technical difficulties (I haven’t got the kit and I’ve no idea what to do if I had….)