Report - Bixhead Stone Quarry - May 2012

[Oxygen Thief]

Explored with Spungletrumpet, Speed and Dweeb.

After a night on the cider at Spungles, and a walk through the meadows in the morning, it was time we headed out to the forest to see something, this place as it happens.

A large stone mine, in a large stone quarry. The size of the chambers was much larger than your average Wiltshire mine, quite impressive.

Sorry, can't find any history on the place.

 

[georgie]

impressive good work chaps

 

[Altair]

Quality pics
loving the scale and look of that place

 

[Landsker]

Very nice!

 

[canute]

That is pretty big - very nice : Looks like the Forest of Dean doesn't just do coal

 

[Oxygen Thief]

Nowhere near, more like Swan.

 

[incywincy]

Wow this place is impressive, I bet the acoustics could rival any concert hall too! Definately gonna have to do some road-trippin' this summer; not a lot of great underground sites up 'wor way'.

 

[spungletrumpet]

Nice pics there mate.. The best I've seen from the place.

That is pretty big - very nice : Looks like the Forest of Dean doesn't just do coal

It does iron as well.

 

[pantomime horse]

fuck me, thats one huge place.
great pics

 

[Seffy]

Brilliant that is, good work guys. Looks mahoosive!

 

[Oxygen Thief]

Nice pics there mate.. The best I've seen from the place.


It does iron as well.

Cheers mate, I'm sure the others will be along soon to disprove the theory.

Iron you say...

 

[Degenatron]

Nice pictures. It looks like an interesting explore. You could even do some boating down there.

 

[kevsy21]

Well captured and really well lit up,it looks massive.Great work gents for doing this place.

 

[The Kwan]

Very nice, makes want to get my wellies out.

 

[Hazy]

"Can't find any history on the place....."

You know what might be really useful ? Some sort of global electronic network that allows you to use a free indexing service to - almost instantly - search for information by doing nothing more complicated than entering search terms such as "Bixhead" ?

http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.asp That's the English Heritage description of the quarries.

And

http://www.gsia.org.uk/reprints/1987/gi198717.pdf

Which is a .pdf of a document that looks like it was written by a local history buff in 1987.

To be fair, there's not that much info (but then I only spent two minutes looking !) Short version : They're post medieval, though there has been quarrying in the area since at least the 15th Century. Eastnor Castle is probably built of stone from here.