Middleton Mine, Derbyshire 04/08

I know that ThenewMendoza and Havoc have been here before, not sure if anyone else has, but I decided it was time that I took a look.

I rounded up The_Revolution and Kaputnik, headed up there, and got in.

There are lots of signs like this, for the most part they lie - tends to be a nice slope of gravel and sand. Easy to get down, not so easy to get back up.


Big electrical cabinet, with armco protection. big arse trucks came through here.


This was quite cool


Bit of torch fun


First Aid shelter, including roll up stretcher and phone


Traffic lights


This was pretty cool


Corner mirror, and handy signage


As I slipped and slid my way down here, I noticed a sign saying "caution slippery surface" about halfway down. Would have been handy if it had been at the top


Lots of odds and ends of junk and wreckage


Big button






Just the cab of this old truck was left. Shame, I wouldn't have minded driving around in there


Pipes and ladder cage


Kaputnik examining a hole in the ceiling.


There are lots of these about, plus many bags of calcium carbonate


It gets a bit wet in places




Conveyor belt


Flooded, blocked tunnels


Guestbook


Daylight!


More daylight! Big vent fan at the end, about 6 foot high


Electricals




Shot through the fan grill, view of the exterior mine workings


Fire extinguisher and valves


Pigeon holes


Hum. Not sure quite what this is.


A, er, um, thing.


Taps and pipes


Well, we would have done, but there didn't seem to be anyone abour


We happy few.


On the way out, after carefully and successfully guiding my two fellow urbexers out, I managed to fall and estimated 3 - 3.5 metres. Landing on concrete and broken stone. I am rather battered, somewhat bloodied and a bit bruised. But I still have a big grin on my face.

Wandering (and wincing) a little further round towards the quarry and Kaputnik spotted some frogs (or possibly toads). So i thought I'd squeeze a shot in.





Two limestone silos, sadly horizontal.


The remains of a narrow gauge railway, protruding over the edge of the quarry


Sinking van


Just was well I saw this on the way out

that place looks ace! good photos.

what did you fall down?

are you alright?

Love the pics, Crashmatt!
dug up a bit of history on Middleton Mine...........
it consists of 35 km of workings, covering an area of 1400 m west to east, and 800 m north to south, it's divided into 5 main production areas by normal faults ( i assume this relates to the grade or quality of the lime-stone)
the method of working was 'room and pillar' with rooms 13m wide, pillars 17m square, extraction height 8mtrs,
the 5 processes of production were.......
scaling. loose rock removed from face, roof and walls mechanically or by hand,
drilling. the face is then drilled to a depth of 4.8mtrs 66 holes in a wedge pattern,
blasting. after drilling the face is charged using amonium nitrate, fired at the end of the working shift, each blast produced about 950tonnes and advanced the face 4 to 4.5 mtr,
loading. a face shovel filled 30 ton dump-trucks which hauled the stone to an underground crushing/screening plant.
crushing and screening. the u/ground plant produced a feed for middleton surface mine, hopton plant, and a screened Aglime.

end use, the mine produced a range of products varying from 125mm to 150 microns (v fine dust!) these supplied industries as varied as glass making, sugar refining, vinyl floor coverings, fertilisers, rubber and plastics production, and other ind. uses.

Sorry to be pedantic, but if they were extracting limestone, then its a quarry not a mine

Phil

Exellent work chaps Cool place this and huge, glad you all got out relativley unscaved. Nice pics too.

Good stuff, it looks massive in there.

Very cool explore with lots of interesting bits to look at. Excellent photos...loved the 'Daylight!' pic especially. Good stuff!

Forgot to say...they're toads (note the warty lumps on their backs!).

Havoc - Thanks, it was a good place to look around, I would like to go back to go along some of the flooded tunnels. The ground is *very* soft in there though - need a variation on snowshoes, I think!

Mat - Thanks, I'm quite pleased with some of the photos. I fell when my anchor point gave way on the exit, bit of a drop. A bit sore and bruised today, but otherwise ok

Cuban - It's a great place to have a wander around, huge open spaces - obviously very dark

Foxy - The "Daylight!" bit is great, a massive conveyor belt leading up into the roof and wide open spaces. Thanks for the info re frog/toad, I know bugger all about plants and animals

It's a cool place this, I've got a rudimentary map of it all somewhere, been meaning to get back for ages.

Nice one.

TnM

shatters said:

Sorry to be pedantic, but if they were extracting limestone, then its a quarry not a mine

Phil

Click to expand...

I thought a quarry was just an open-pit mine.

BigLoada said:

I thought a quarry was just an open-pit mine.

Click to expand...

Minerals = mine
Stone = quarry

If they were extracting coal from an open pit it would be called an "open cast" mine.

Phil

BigLoada said:

I thought a quarry was just an open-pit mine.

Click to expand...

Correct me if I am wrong but as I recall, it's a mine if it's extracting minerals and a quarry if extracting stone. Sounds like it should really be a quarry!

Grumpy said:

Correct me if I am wrong but as I recall, it's a mine if it's extracting minerals and a quarry if extracting stone. Sounds like it should really be a quarry!

Click to expand...

Well whatever it should be called, or is officially called, it's known as Middleton Mine, possibly to distinguish it from the open quarry next to it.

did the washing machine cope with these, crashmatt??

forgot about this pic of the strange creeping mould around barrels of who knows what

Kaputnik said:

did the washing machine cope with these, crashmatt??

Click to expand...

Heh. Yep, nice and clean and dry again

Curses! A thousand curses! Why did I turn this trip down!

Great pics guys, great pics....

ashless said:

Curses! A thousand curses! Why did I turn this trip down!

Great pics guys, great pics....

Click to expand...

my sentiments exactly

For various reasons it's taken me a while to add some of my pictures from this trip. So here they are. First try at shooting in the dark; so there aren't many that turned out.


Looking at the top sign it's a good job it's a quarry and not a mine


Daylight shines trough an opening.


No way out; so Crashmatt takes a picture.


Fresh air; Kaputnik looks out through an old fan.