Kingsdown Quarry
Another nice little quarry from the Wiltshire weekend. This one was visited with Oxygen Thief, The Franconian, Fazy_UK and PCWOX. It was a pleasant wander and more laughs were had at The Franconian's expense as he got a little stuck in the Letterbox 
History
Kingsdown Quarry also commonly known as Swan Mine is a small bath stone quarry lying under the hillside along the road from Bathford to Kingsdown. The Main entrance to the quarry is opposite the Swan Inn which was once the Quarry managers house, the inn its self is held to the hill side by great iron chains anchored ito the buried workings of the quarry itself. Kingsdown Quarry was producing stone as far back as 1833 when it featured in a geological survey of the area.
The main entrance to the quarry today is a narrow crawl through a lean too tunnel built to protect the remains of the original quarry entrance which collapsed in 1998. Once through the entrance the tunnel opens out before an another crawl to avoid an unstable looking roof fall and then a second below an over hanging bolder then the quarry opens out. The quarry itself is fairly small consisting of a number of dead end passage ways which are relatively untouched.
Kingsdown was never modernised it was never fitted with a rail system all the stone it produced was hauled out by pit pony's hauling wooden carts. Deeply ridged cart tracks can still been seen in many of the quarry's tunnels and places the horses hoof prints can still be seen. Throughout the quarry are remains of quarryman's tools, a stone carved horses water trough and at the end of one of the most remote tunnel stands a intact crane though it is unstable condition.
On the way out of the quarry a lower series of tunnels can be reached through a letterbox slide into a narrow twisting passage which leads to window in the rock and then a final squeeze through a slot exit at the foot of the hillside.
On with the pictures.
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Thanks for looking
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Thanks for looking
