Excavation 1:
Having concluded the work at Middle Adit ‘The Wednesday
Gang’ moved onto a similar, if more archaeologically based dig
at Top Adit. In 2017 a plan was created to look for the water
supply for the pipe that once fed the top reservoir and a
loading bay, and then to clear the rail track bed and entrance
to the adit. The loading bay and water supply excavations were
just below the waste tip and when completed revealed the
entrance to the water supply and a conclusion that water was
allowed to seep into its collecting area from the mine
working. The area was clearly used to collect the ore to be
transported down the hill side as the picture shows.
Excavation 2:
Next we moved onto the waste tip to clear the track bed of the 18inch tramway that was used to remove the waste from the adit. The tip is 20 yards long by 3 yards wide and still had rail in place as the photograph shows. Once the vegetation was cleared the track to the adit entrance revealed how the area had been worked over the various phases shown on mine plans.
Excavation 3:
Then it was clearing the open cut, so two old boys and a wheel barrow were back in action. At the mouth of the adit we found the remains of what seemed to be a wooden planked shelter, presumably to shield the workers from falling material. Behind one of the side planks we made a remarkable find, as the photograph shows, the wrapping paper from the explosives used in the mine. ‘Victor Powder’ turned out to be an explosive used mainly in coal mines with a softer blast and was made by the Nobel Company in Glasgow, therefore was pre-1926. The site produced some other interesting finds from pieces of candle to parts of a wheel barrow and plenty of dog spikes from the tramway.
The
Victor Powder wrapper.
may2020
The water exited through a 6 inch pipe at the bottom right corner of the picture. The colour of the whole area clearly shows this to be the storage area.
The
track bed heading towards the end of the tip. Since the
excavation the wet weather has caused the land in foreground
to collapse and a hole some 10 feet wide and 20 feet deep
has appeared; presumably this has collapsed into middle
adit.
The adit
mouth with the remains of the wooden shelter waiting to be
excavated.