Trip to Hendre Spar Mine -- 22nd Oct 2011

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Trip to Hendre Spar Mine -- 22nd Oct 2011

Group: Paul, Dave, Dennis, Mary

There had been recent rumours that water levels at the bottom of the mine where dropping and several new areas where now accessible and so this sounded a good enough reason for a trip. The last time any of us had been down was July 2009 and it was then in the same state as the first trip report.

We drove to Hendre on a warm sunny day and parked up in the usual place as sadly the pub looked shut and the car park was coned off... After climbing to the air shaft we dropped down the ladders and quickly made our way to the main ladderway. Dennis needed a leg up to climb up the shaft with the firehose, but other than that the trip to the base of the ladders took no time at all. We headed right at the base of the ladders to the hole with a compressed air pipe that led to the flooded section - only there was no water. In fact the sloping passage was just dry sandy rubble all the way down and it tee'd onto a large passage. To the left was a sort of crude shelter made of corrugated iron and timber. After this the water seemed to get a lot deeper - certainly over 5' and probably a lot more. We decided to investigate that later.

The floor in front had about 6" inches of still water and this carried on along the RHS passage. Almost opposite was a small eyehole about 2' off the ground which Mary dived through. The rest of us headed along the RHS passage, passing an old axle and wheels en route and met up with Mary who appeared out of a side passage. The side passage didn't seem to go anywhere and we decided the dividing wall had probably been left to support the roof.

Carrying on the water level dropped and we were walking along a hewn passage with rails which appeared to carry on straight ahead. The whole area was very spacious and the air absolutely fine. In fact the only awkward thing was the mud on the floor got very gloopy the further on you went and this stuck to wellies like glue so that your feet weighed more and more. We passed an old tipping wagon base which moved freely on the tracks and found the remains of what looked like a turntable for moving the wagons off the rails. Wiring on the LHS wall eventually led to an evenly spaced set of lights. There was a compressed air on the left a floor level which had junctions at odd intervals.

After a considerable distance a reinforced portal was reached. This was a very substantial affair, made of RSJ and heavy timber, and appeared to have been installed where the passage went through an unstable area. The portal was only about 40' long and after it the passage continued getting even larger and squarer. It was about 15-20' wide and maybe 30' high in places, but then dropped down to the earlier dimensions. The mud on the floor was really sticky at this point and after a few more metres another portal was reached. This was in a bit more sorry state as a few large boulders had punctured and broken some of the roof timbers, but the metalwork still looked fine. There was some debris and it was necessary to squeeze between this and the roof timbers on the LHS. It's probably fairly safe, but best avoid touching anything!

After the portal the passage continued as a regular square section. There were odd artifacts on the floor, the odd bottle (full of clean water) here, the odd bread bag or bucket there. There was hopper for the tipping wagon and some pieces of rail track arranged as a junction, but obviously not used. Eventually the compressed air pipe terminated in a standpipe and shortly after that the passage and rails terminated at a clean rock face. There were pot noodle containers, bread bags and bottles etc which must have been from the last workers just before the mine closed.

We headed back, noticing yet more artifacts, a rake, oil drums, a wagon hopper wedge in a roof passage etc,

Getting back to the initial access we carefully waded into the water till it was just over wellie depth and then called a halt. In the distance we could see a rope dropped down on the LHS side from an upper level, but we chickened out going any further and headed back up just stopping to look at some of the crystals, a clay figure someone had made and an air-leg for a drill. The trip out was easy and we emerged in bright sunshine again.

A really good trip with a lot more to see and if the water level keeps dropping at 2' per 14 days the whole mine will be accessible by xmas

Total trip time about 3 hours