A ganister (or sometimes gannister) is hard, fine-grained quartzose sandstone, or orthoquartzite, used in the manufacture of silica brick typically used to line furnaces. Ganisters are cemented with secondary silica and typically have a characteristic splintery fracture.
You can check out all my photos from this explore here on my Flickr.
Background:
From what I can gather and researching into this mine, it looks like it could have been owned by a nearby business or factory in the Oughtibridge area. Although, it's been quite difficult to find much more info about this, so if anyone knows anything please get in touch.
The explore:
After unsuccessfully looking for the entrance to the mine a few weeks ago, we spoke to another urban explorer who'd been recently, and it seems that we had been looking in the complete wrong area! After getting some pretty accurate coordinates, we headed into the Oughtibridge forest via a small path and began our search for the entrance. The entrance is almost completely covered up, especially with leaves around this time of year, so isn't the easiest of spots!
After the recent heavy rainfall and floods in Sheffield it wasn't a suprise that the second chamber of the mine was completely flooded and inaccessible, as seen by my photos. Sadly, therefore, we could only venture as far as the entrance chamber. The mine has a layout somewhat like the diagram below:
The entranceway to the mine:
Looking into the first chamber, I wonder if there was anything behind this rockfall:
Looking to the second chamber, unfortunately we weren't geared up enough to venture into the water:
Inside the first chamber:
Plenty of spiders calling this place home!:
You can check out all my photos from this explore here on my Flickr.
Background:
From what I can gather and researching into this mine, it looks like it could have been owned by a nearby business or factory in the Oughtibridge area. Although, it's been quite difficult to find much more info about this, so if anyone knows anything please get in touch.
The explore:
After unsuccessfully looking for the entrance to the mine a few weeks ago, we spoke to another urban explorer who'd been recently, and it seems that we had been looking in the complete wrong area! After getting some pretty accurate coordinates, we headed into the Oughtibridge forest via a small path and began our search for the entrance. The entrance is almost completely covered up, especially with leaves around this time of year, so isn't the easiest of spots!
After the recent heavy rainfall and floods in Sheffield it wasn't a suprise that the second chamber of the mine was completely flooded and inaccessible, as seen by my photos. Sadly, therefore, we could only venture as far as the entrance chamber. The mine has a layout somewhat like the diagram below:
The entranceway to the mine:
Looking into the first chamber, I wonder if there was anything behind this rockfall:
Looking to the second chamber, unfortunately we weren't geared up enough to venture into the water:
Inside the first chamber:
Plenty of spiders calling this place home!:
