The forth trip of the year into Brownley Hill now and already some
parties have voiced concern that it is going to turn in to another Smallcleugh
like obsession, yes, but how else are we going to see every nook and cranny?
Small minded people.
We headed straight for Tatler's String and climbed
up out of the horse level. This time we explored the west side from the
entrance, south stope as far as we could go. Heading west the stope at first
was the same sort of width as its eastern counterpart, but soon it started to
narrow and grow very high. We passed through sections that were almost cave
like and dropped down an number of rubble slopes along. Finally we reached as
far as we could go. Standing at the top of a rubble slope, we looked down and
across to see a stacked dead wall from top to bottom filling the stope - very
impressive work. Pete made his way down the slope to the wall and noticed that
there was a crosscut on the left hand side some 4-5m up. He started to climb it
and managed to get into it, calling for us to follow. Alistair went down and
climbed up, followed by myself. The crosscut gave a connection to the
'expected' parallel north stope. Once in you could go left and right. We took
the right first, which entailed climbing up some deads and stemples - however
it was a dead end. Returning to the crosscut we then looked into the left hand
branch, but that also came to an end. It looked like you could go further at a
higher level, but there was no way to get to it. We climbed back down and came
back to the rise that give entry to Tatler's String, where we had lunch by the
light of Pete's smelly carbide lamp. Why does he have to bring it out on an
outing every so often?
Afterwards we quickly made our way to the rise
into the High Level and this time we went the other way, wondering how far it
was open for. Eastwards the High Level was not in as good as state as the west
side from the rise and we had to do duck walking and crawling over fallen
areas. Eventually we came to sump on the left and a right hand continuation of
the level. We could not have a good look at the sump as it had a shaley rubble
slope down towards it, so was too risky. Pete had left his bag and rope in the
stopes so a no goer. Moving on in the level, now heading at right angles to the
passage that we had come from we pretty much hit a fall on the level some 20m
on - the end. So much for thinking about getting to the Brownley Hill Moss
Cross Vein section of the High Level.
We dropped back down to Tatler's
String and made our way to the rise that would drop us back into the horse
level with a view to carrying on in eastwards. I've only been in this part of
the mine once before on the round trip and so it was as if it was the fist time
for me. Alistair may have been once before a long time ago and that was it. We
followed the level along, whilst keeping an eye on the plan, so that we could
see how accurately it followed the lay of the land. It did and it didn't is the
short answer to that one. Whilst being able to corollate some features for sure
as we went along, others were guess work and maybes. The level after a while
became hard going with lots of shale falls from the roof and sides - up and
down, in and out of water. Finally we came to a junction that we reckoned must
have been the Brownley Hill Moss Cross Vein intersection. The north branch here
was through a crawl into a fallen level, however poking your head in, it soon
became apparent that there was a really strong air draft coming through, so
there must be some link in with the north end of this vein. Judging by the plan
there is a link in to the south end by a south east branch from the horse
level, but that looked like it was a no brainer with the state of the entrance
to it - we almost missed it due to it being half buried by fallen shale.
Looking at the plan and trying to make sense of the branches we had gone by we
carried on, our objective now being to identify the junctions for Brownley Hill
West High Cross Vein and the High Cross Vein. At last the level started to get
better and we entered a region where we had nice stone lined passage - ah to
stand up straight.
After a while we reached a main junction with a
branch on the right, that you had to crawl through. The junction was also
marked with the remains of a shovel. This we assumed to be the West High Cross
Vein. Sticking your head in the crawl space, there was a draft present. Moving
on eastwards we knew that we should shortly come to another right hand branch
for the next cross vein, which we indeed did. Here the branch was marked by a
pair of wheels and axles, this must be the High Cross Vein junction. The level
continued past this and Alistair went to have a look, according to the plan it
should go for roughly the same distance as the spacing between the West and
High Cross Veins and then hit a forehead. When Alistair came back he was
complaining of feeling funny and that the air was bad down the continuation of
the level. Time wise we could not really go further now and had to exit the
mine, a bit like getting up to do that paracute jump and then saying na, next
time. So much to see and do. |
