Posted by Jock on October 20, 2007 at 10:03:31 from 87.105.81.146 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Prospecting posted by Laurence Monkhouse on October 20, 2007 at 07:01:46:
I still don't believe that if it comes to the crunch it will get approval.
Surely this would depend on the environmental impact or more precisely how and where the mining company would propose disposing of the spoil? Opencast slate mining still goes on on one side of the Old Man and, last time I was in the area, admittedly about 15 years ago, 'Slater Bob's mine' at Tilberthwaite Gill was still going strong.
Subsequent to writing the above it appears that this is now closed. Googling on "Tilberthwaite" came up with this quote and some photos.
Tilberthwaite Deep is worked along an old copper mine drainage level. The mine was in use until the late 1990's and was worked on a small scale by a group of men who acquired it in the 1980's. The mine is perfectly safe to explore and still has some piping and buried rail track in place. The mine is navigatible up to a point when fallen clayey material has blocked the passage; at this point the tunnel is near to entering the copper workings. The copper workings could probably be reached by enthusiasyic digging.(sic)
Googling further came up with these wonderful pictures 1, 2, 3, copied from Eric Holland's book Coniston Copper: A History. Note the other book reached by this link, Coniston Copper Mines: A Field Guide also by Eric Holland, is in print. The field guide can be 'sampled' by clicking on its image.
Returning to the last three pictures, I'm not really sure whether these were really taken at John Shaw's level, as captioned by Holland, or at Tilberthwaite. When Oscar Gnosspelous's (Squashy Hat's) copper prospecting failed to find any workable ore he set up John Shaw (Slater Bob) slate mining in Tilberthwaite. Depicting as they do events in PP - tramming out material from the mine, panning and blowpiping - the photos look very much like AR's own 'Holywoods' taken to assist him in drawing his illustrations. If that is the case my guess is they were taken at Tilberthwaite.