# Marden Mine



## godzilla73 (Oct 13, 2009)

Marden is about a ten minute walk from Godstone main series, but is actually a much smaller mine, which was mainly used for mining firestone. Like Godstone, it also saw service as a mushroom farm but was also used as an ammunition store during WW2 and later as a bonded warehouse (for alcohol and tobacco which had not had duty paid on it). I didn't get so many pictures here as I did at Godstone(my battery gave out half way round) but it is still an interesting contrast.

Like Godstone there is a lot of dry stone walling to stop slips from occurring, but you'll also notice that the propping is very different, using stone stacks rather than railway sleepers (pics 1&2). This is because the miners found out fairly soon that railway sleepers didn't work (see pic 3 which shows a collapse around a sleeper prop) because of the very crumbly nature of hearthstone.













Some views along the galleries - there is the rusting iron frame of a water barrel in that second photo








Some stuff down the mine including some screws for securing pit props, a yellow lamp and some of the trackway that was used to haul wagons around the mine













Enjoy! GDZ


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## DaveyGTI (Oct 13, 2009)

Fair play dude you have some guts, i've been down some dodgy looking tunnels but nothing quite that sketchy looking! some nice piccys aswell, is that Marden in north kent? I used to get the train through there regularly and never knew there was a mine!


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## godzilla73 (Oct 13, 2009)

DaveyGTI said:


> Fair play dude you have some guts, i've been down some dodgy looking tunnels but nothing quite that sketchy looking! some nice piccys aswell, is that Marden in north kent? I used to get the train through there regularly and never knew there was a mine!



It is just in kent, but its not the Marden you are thinking of which is further East. Its much tinier, but has the same name. Something which happens quite a lot in Kent - check out the two Goodnestones and actually how close they are to each other. Bizarre Kent-ness!


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