West Mine Alderly Edge 2010

[he who must rome]

The biggest mine in Alderly Edge is West Mine and was worked during the years between 1857 to 1878, in 1858 there was a great discovery of an ancient gallery which clearly shows earlier mining had taken place well before this time although this earlier mining was very small compared to the activities of the Alderly Edge Mining Company, there were mining here for copper and cobalt which is Malachite (a copper carbonate mineral which is a green-colour mineral) and Azurite (a soft deep blue copper mineral produced by weathering of copper ore deposits) and also Asbolite (A black, earthy mineral aggregate containing hydrated oxides of manganese and cobalt) this was in one of the orebodys and in the second orebody was Lead in the form of Cerussite (known as lead carbonate or white lead ore) and in this small amounts of Silver was also extracted.

The first mining type of work was by open cast in the years between 1857 to 1860 this created a vast quarry on the southern slope of Alderly Edge and within this was three mineral rich beds known as bed 1, 2 and 3 the beds were sandstone in-between these beds was barren rock with the ore in irregular but large patches and above the clay beds. Bed number 1 or the bottom bed was the most productive and due to this gunpowder was used to blow large chunks off the bed for the miners to brake up further to manageable sizes, to process the ore (copper and lead) a treatment works was built.

By the 1860's the copper ore grade was around the 2.5% which was satisfactory for the mining company but by 1864 a fault was encountered, this had displaced the ore layers and this caused several problems, several exploratory levels were mined to find the ore mineralised rock again and this was done under the instruction of the mine manager.

In the back end of the 1860's the ore became depleted thus the output from the mining company dropped dramatically and by the 1870's the cheaper imported copper brought a close to the Alderly Mining Company by 1867. Around the 1950's/60's the quarry was filled in and the mine entrance sealed.

If you wish to gain access to any of the mines in Alderly Edge then you need to contact DCC and more information for all the mines can be found on there website at

http://www.derbyscc.org.uk/

Very early pick marks...

Looking into the Hour Glass....this for me was a real pain .....as i had to use a combination technique...

Mine relics...

Looking into the green dry river bed (copper deposits)....furthen through this is a waterfall now not been seen for over 40 years due

to you can not get passed this bed without any damage.....thats a BIG no no !...

A view to the roman gallery !...

The purple is a very rare growth not found in any other mine todate !...

Time to go deeper !...

Hmmmmm don't think i'd smoke these...

Free climbing a 40 foot vertical shaft.....

The Roman level...

Oh no the tight bit !...

A view from the other side.....Tight bugger !...

A laugh at my expence...............but I don't mind !... just click on the bottom pic for a laugh at me...

This was a cool nice mine but i want a few days in her without coming up for light.....cheers Edd (DCC).....

Hope you like the pic's...

 

[Wevsky]

I do like a mine

 

[Maniac]

Some of that does look a bit of a squeeze, can see the bright green of the copper deposts in some of the areas, makes a nice difference to the brown of the rest of it.

Thanks for posting.

M