Alderley Edge mines

On Sunday we would do a mine (or several mines) of which I didn’t know more than that it was warm in there, and no SRT was involved. So I had packed an old pair of outdoor trousers and an old waterproof jacket. 

Over breakfast (basically, yesterday’s lunch) I found out the entrance was walking distance away. And now things started to make sense! Why the club hut and its adjacent field were here, for instance. That was because of these mines. I had run past an open lode with a fence around it, and an information sign about the DCC leasing and maintaining the site. So if you have such a responsibility, you might as well have a base there too, with a kit store, and a place where you can have a brew under a roof after a hard day of mine maintenance. 

We got kitted up and set off. The entrance was in the fenced off lode! There was a door there. And so we stepped into a mine in Permo-Triassic Red Sandstone. I had never been in a place like that! I love red sandstones. They normally don’t have mines in them. These did for reasons of hydrothermal activity. I wondered if that would have been associated with the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. 

The open lode

It was beautiful in there! Obviously. And quite spacious. And with lots of infrastructure, as there are tourist trips in there. 

Space and infrastrucure. Pic by Sal

 

It’s a bit of a warren! Not like some slate mines that form a highly regular pattern. And it had lots of shafts and winzes and flooded bits and ladders and whatnot. And amazing sedimentology. And lovely blue and green drippies because of the hydrothermal activity.

Look at these sedimentary structures!

Sharon at the top of a laddered winze with drippies

Mary in on of the irregular passages

Ripples in the ceiling

Me looking at drippies. Pic by Sharon

The canoe trip rom one mine to the next. Pic by Sharon

I think we did two interconnected mines. The connection was flooded, and negotiated by canoe. On the other side we ran a bit out of steam, so we only saw a small part of the second mine. But that was ok! Maybe there’ll be an opportunity to come back one day. I was tired and had seen way more than enough to make it worth the trip. So that was the underground fun of my first ladies only weekend away! Maybe more will follow…