The history Mitcheldean. Opened 1861? in its zenith day 200 men produced 4000 tons of ore annually. Closed 1918 see also Bailey Level qv. The main shaft was sunk to a depth of 528 feet when a strong feeder of water was encountered. Columbus Shaft, located 500 yards NNE was sunk prior to the Wigpool Shaft to a similar depth and two levels driven out at depths of 345 feet and 378 feet respectively. Both shaft have long been obliterated. Today the two main entrances are Sway Hole and Steam Hole and two minor entrances, Meeks Hole and Fox Hole. The last two are connect to the mine by small winding passages.
The explore / the task to try and accomplish on this visit
We went in through Sway trying to find the high level connection to the stream, this was our set task by jan. Sounded easy enough to me! I’ve done loads of iron mines. (never should of said that) only done iron mines in my area! God I payed the price for 95% of the trip. We showed up at the addit already I thought wow this looks different than what I am use to but absolutely loved the look of it. The 20-25ft drop into what I thought was the drive, at this point i was behind the safety barrier and once the ropes were set up for the safety line and the ladder connected, they said, “Who wants to go first?” I said, “me!” I jumped over, got hooked up by the caving crew and down I went into a world I was not so used to, a world of crawling threw tunnels, the diameter of a dustbin for hours on end threw soaking wet red clay type substance. The other issues on this trip is that you are crawling.... not on a constant level like my area (Huntingdonshire/Northamptonshire) being here the incline and the declines are constant, this tires you out constantly but still we all pressed on for 3 hours trying to find the higher connection. Some of the crawling you went down the tunnels for around 10 minutes to find a dead end without the space to turn around, so you all had to reverse out! Eventually we ended giving up and joining the middle passage, the crawl carried on to this sheer face of around 20ft drop. We had to safety line down this, especially me not a experienced climber at all! Their we was into the mine.... What an achievement, I felt it was truly amazing to link from a cave like type system into a real underground ironstone mine with tramways. We stayed on the top of level 1 for a while and arrived to this steep decline down, it was like nothing I have ever seen one of the most amazing experiences ever, so down we went but sadly it was heavily flooded after this it was time for the climb/crawl out, this was hard because all of us had ruined any grip and had made wet surface from on the way in so it was very slippery.
We entered a beautiful chamber with stalagmites some appeared like countless curtains also the ones under water, they was like circle balls it was truly beautiful, what a amazing trip!!
Thank you very much Alex/Jann for the guided tour and the opportunity to join you guys.
Thank you very much to the caving crew helping me with my useless climbing skills!
Here was my view of the trip
As always I would just like to state, if you are not experienced read the guides on here ,do not go down any mine without being took down by a experienced person !
The ladder after entering
The first veiw I had after turning around Alex I am not use to this lol !
The start of the cave like system truly amazing experience
The hold fire moment we are at a steep drop time to get ropes out for the newbies ie me Ross !
A return look back up shows you how mad this place is looks a normal tunnel but really leads to the shaft !
The tramway that leads into the real level 1 so amazing would imagine around 30% decline going down could be wrong
Time to start the exit extremely steep though !
Rope time for me please lads !
stalagmites
Stalagmites
Under water stalagmites photo took by Chloe
Close up of the stalagmites
The exit
Thank you for viewing and reading any mistakes please tell me , thanks so much everyone for this opportunity and joining me
The explore / the task to try and accomplish on this visit
We went in through Sway trying to find the high level connection to the stream, this was our set task by jan. Sounded easy enough to me! I’ve done loads of iron mines. (never should of said that) only done iron mines in my area! God I payed the price for 95% of the trip. We showed up at the addit already I thought wow this looks different than what I am use to but absolutely loved the look of it. The 20-25ft drop into what I thought was the drive, at this point i was behind the safety barrier and once the ropes were set up for the safety line and the ladder connected, they said, “Who wants to go first?” I said, “me!” I jumped over, got hooked up by the caving crew and down I went into a world I was not so used to, a world of crawling threw tunnels, the diameter of a dustbin for hours on end threw soaking wet red clay type substance. The other issues on this trip is that you are crawling.... not on a constant level like my area (Huntingdonshire/Northamptonshire) being here the incline and the declines are constant, this tires you out constantly but still we all pressed on for 3 hours trying to find the higher connection. Some of the crawling you went down the tunnels for around 10 minutes to find a dead end without the space to turn around, so you all had to reverse out! Eventually we ended giving up and joining the middle passage, the crawl carried on to this sheer face of around 20ft drop. We had to safety line down this, especially me not a experienced climber at all! Their we was into the mine.... What an achievement, I felt it was truly amazing to link from a cave like type system into a real underground ironstone mine with tramways. We stayed on the top of level 1 for a while and arrived to this steep decline down, it was like nothing I have ever seen one of the most amazing experiences ever, so down we went but sadly it was heavily flooded after this it was time for the climb/crawl out, this was hard because all of us had ruined any grip and had made wet surface from on the way in so it was very slippery.
We entered a beautiful chamber with stalagmites some appeared like countless curtains also the ones under water, they was like circle balls it was truly beautiful, what a amazing trip!!
Thank you very much Alex/Jann for the guided tour and the opportunity to join you guys.
Thank you very much to the caving crew helping me with my useless climbing skills!
Here was my view of the trip
As always I would just like to state, if you are not experienced read the guides on here ,do not go down any mine without being took down by a experienced person !
The ladder after entering
The first veiw I had after turning around Alex I am not use to this lol !
The start of the cave like system truly amazing experience
The hold fire moment we are at a steep drop time to get ropes out for the newbies ie me Ross !
A return look back up shows you how mad this place is looks a normal tunnel but really leads to the shaft !
The tramway that leads into the real level 1 so amazing would imagine around 30% decline going down could be wrong
Time to start the exit extremely steep though !
Rope time for me please lads !
Stalagmites
Under water stalagmites photo took by Chloe
Close up of the stalagmites
The exit
Thank you for viewing and reading any mistakes please tell me , thanks so much everyone for this opportunity and joining me
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