Spawood Iron Stone Mine

Edus1 · (#1)

This was a trip arranged along side the Boulby trip in January but i am lazy and only just got round to putting this up lol

Ironstone was extracted from Spa Wood mine between March 1853 and December 1928.

The iron stone was extracted using board and pillar system to allow the maximum to be removed while keeping the strength to support the ground above.

Lots of info available here

http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/s905.htm

Please note this is on private land and access is arrange by the land owner hence keeping it quiet.

And for those who dont really why you should be very careful when exploring underground this is the print out from the gas detector showing the Oxygen readout for the trip!

buddah · (#2)

very nice, apart from those oxygen levels.

tristanjay · (#3)

at the O2 readout. Some lovely colours in there. Do you know if there is something in the ironstone that makes the environment particularly corrosive ?

Edus1 · (#4)

The iron just sap the Oxygen as it oxidises so you get plenty of ocre. Also all the vent shafts and adits are filled so there is no air flow. We only saw a tiny fraction of the place.

tarboat · (#5)

Great looking place but scary O2 readings.

carabeener · (#6)

It was quite wierd, as you walked along, water from each of the workings that you passed was depositing different colours, from pure white, to green, blue, orange... I'm assuming it is picking up minerals from different veins as it seeps in. Or I was just off my face from the low oxygen and they all looked the same!

The not nice bit was around the fire powered ventilation shaft in the last picture. The shaft had been used to dump engine oil down the shaft so it stank and we got covered in oil up to our shins. Luckily(?) we had to wade through water up to our middle (or knees in Ed's case) to get out so got out nice and clean.

Morrisey · (#7)

Pretty grim regarding the oil dump! What was the fire/furnace in pic 8, was this also a ventilation shaft?

carabeener · (#8)

No, that was the underground blacksmiths.

Edus1 · (#9)

Yeah that was the black smiths. The gears and pricker handles were all dumped outside the blacksmiths

There were 2 air ventilation shafts we came across that used to have a furnace at the base to create and air draw but they were both blocked off. when you look at the size of the place and how far you can actually get it makes you wonder what else is in there to see.

Twitch · (#10)

The guys who showed us round are trying to improve air flow to open up more of it for exploration, but it's a dangerous job.

The flooded winze in pic 13 was my favourite bit, as the guys were as suprised as we were at the water level. I wasn't too keen on the low O2 though. Feeling like you're drowning in air isn't pleasant