Middleton Mine
I finally made it here after making plans to meet Xan Asmodi, Raptor Jesus, Thompski and Maniac, Well I called to pick up Xan at 7am only to find his house in Darkness when normally he is standing outside waiting and keen as mustard so I set about ringing him and texting him all to no avail, He had obviously slept in so not wanting to knock everyone up at 7am I reluctantly left and made my way towards Derbyshire.
The panic started to set in when I realised that I didnt have Raptor jesus's phone number to confirm if they were still meeting because I didnt want to walk around Middleton on my Todd so I started posting in the 28dl chatbox hoping that someone could help as 230 miles round trip was a bit of a hike to find that it was a non starter, Anyhoos Mrs Derphouse came to my rescue and came up trumps...so If Mrs Derpington is attending the U.E pissup then her first drink is on me.
I was so pleased that we finally got below ground and although my pictures mostly feature people in them it is to show the scale of this monster place, it is truly Mahoosive and the dark just sucked up every lumin that I had, so I was pleased to see that Maniac had brought his homemade project along with him, check it on the video.
Middleton Mine is located around 4 miles from Matlock. The mine works the Hopton-Wood Limestone which occurs underneath Middleton Moor in the White Peak.
A bit about Middleton
It's unknown when surface operations first started on the site, but dimension stone operations continued until the 1950's when due to the rapid (if not unfortunate) development of concrete technology the demand for natural stone products fell. Derbyshire Stone, the then operators and owners of the site, had pre-empted this fall in demand by developing a small processing plant to crush the limestone to supply the steel and sugar industry.
Towards the end of the decade the situation with the surface operations reached a point where it became increasingly uneconomic to keep stripping the overburden (which was increasing in depth as a quarry cut into the moor) to gain access to the high purity Hopton-wood beds. The Company was reluctant to lose the customer base it had built up with the processed products, so the decision to commence underground operations was taken.
The company at that time were operating a lead mine in Matlock and moved two of the personnel to Middleton. Work on a drift access was started on February the 4th 1959 and to date approximately 16 million tonnes of high grade limestone have been extracted for the underground workings.
At present Middleton Mine consists of 35km of workings covering an area of 1400 metres west to east and 800 m north to south. Middleton Mine is divided into five main production areas by normal faults. The method of working is room and pillar, with rooms 13 m wide and pillars 17 m square. The extraction height is 8 m. This is an increase from the original pattern of 11 m wide roadways and 14 m square pillars.
first off Maniacs Homebrewed H.I.D lamp
short video of Maniacs bubba in action
[video=youtube;tKkuD20UkNo]
An aggregate converyor near a flooded chamber
YMCA...except maniac is a Fking X
so large is this place, this shot is me on one level and Maniac on another
What remains of some fan ducting near to the main air fans, kinda reminded me of gonzo off the muppets but other suggestions included a gasmask and cock and balls.
The workers porta cabin..burned out ofcourse
Fking huge King Kong style air doors
One of the wide passageways
Mahoosive air fans..biggest I ever seen'd
another conveyor of sorts.
A bit o video
I finally made it here after making plans to meet Xan Asmodi, Raptor Jesus, Thompski and Maniac, Well I called to pick up Xan at 7am only to find his house in Darkness when normally he is standing outside waiting and keen as mustard so I set about ringing him and texting him all to no avail, He had obviously slept in so not wanting to knock everyone up at 7am I reluctantly left and made my way towards Derbyshire.
The panic started to set in when I realised that I didnt have Raptor jesus's phone number to confirm if they were still meeting because I didnt want to walk around Middleton on my Todd so I started posting in the 28dl chatbox hoping that someone could help as 230 miles round trip was a bit of a hike to find that it was a non starter, Anyhoos Mrs Derphouse came to my rescue and came up trumps...so If Mrs Derpington is attending the U.E pissup then her first drink is on me.
I was so pleased that we finally got below ground and although my pictures mostly feature people in them it is to show the scale of this monster place, it is truly Mahoosive and the dark just sucked up every lumin that I had, so I was pleased to see that Maniac had brought his homemade project along with him, check it on the video.
Middleton Mine is located around 4 miles from Matlock. The mine works the Hopton-Wood Limestone which occurs underneath Middleton Moor in the White Peak.
A bit about Middleton
It's unknown when surface operations first started on the site, but dimension stone operations continued until the 1950's when due to the rapid (if not unfortunate) development of concrete technology the demand for natural stone products fell. Derbyshire Stone, the then operators and owners of the site, had pre-empted this fall in demand by developing a small processing plant to crush the limestone to supply the steel and sugar industry.
Towards the end of the decade the situation with the surface operations reached a point where it became increasingly uneconomic to keep stripping the overburden (which was increasing in depth as a quarry cut into the moor) to gain access to the high purity Hopton-wood beds. The Company was reluctant to lose the customer base it had built up with the processed products, so the decision to commence underground operations was taken.
The company at that time were operating a lead mine in Matlock and moved two of the personnel to Middleton. Work on a drift access was started on February the 4th 1959 and to date approximately 16 million tonnes of high grade limestone have been extracted for the underground workings.
At present Middleton Mine consists of 35km of workings covering an area of 1400 metres west to east and 800 m north to south. Middleton Mine is divided into five main production areas by normal faults. The method of working is room and pillar, with rooms 13 m wide and pillars 17 m square. The extraction height is 8 m. This is an increase from the original pattern of 11 m wide roadways and 14 m square pillars.
first off Maniacs Homebrewed H.I.D lamp
short video of Maniacs bubba in action
[video=youtube;tKkuD20UkNo]
An aggregate converyor near a flooded chamber
YMCA...except maniac is a Fking X
so large is this place, this shot is me on one level and Maniac on another
What remains of some fan ducting near to the main air fans, kinda reminded me of gonzo off the muppets but other suggestions included a gasmask and cock and balls.
The workers porta cabin..burned out ofcourse
Fking huge King Kong style air doors
One of the wide passageways
Mahoosive air fans..biggest I ever seen'd
another conveyor of sorts.
A bit o video
Last edited:
