Trip to Parc Mine level 2 -- 15th August 2004

WCG Home Page

Back to Parc Mine Index

Content and images
© WCG 2003-2015

Click images to enlarge

Last Changed: 26/1/2015

E-mail webmaster

Trip to Parc Mine level 2 -- 15th August 2004

Group: Dennis, Dave

This was a quick return trip to investigate the section of Parc level 2 to the left of the 'dodgy junction' and look at the state of the ladders leading to level 3 with a view to a through trip in the future.

The weather was hot and humid and so it was very pleasant to enter the cleft containing the adit. The barricade presented no problems and we headed off toward the T junction. The floor of the entrance passage seemed to have a couple of large piles of roof debris which we had obviously climbed over on the previous trip, but had failed to mention in the report and had forgotten about!

On arrival at the T junction a quick survey showed the floor was a bit rickety on the LHS, however there were some compressed air pipes overhead and it didn't take long to rig a safety line. This was probably a bit over overkill (not sure that's the right word!) as the traverse went OK and the floor of the LHS passage was solid. The Photos show a view of the floor from the entrance passage and a view looking towards the intended direction of travel.

The passage carried on straight for a few hundred feet and eventually reached a junction and a gated wall marking the Bidston Tidal Experimental area. Just prior to this junction is a hole in the floor on the LHS of the passage which drops down into vertical shaft. There is a piece of ladder towards the bottom of this, and it is not clear how much further down the shaft goes.

The Tidal experimental area is separated from the rest of the mine by an impressive brick wall and steel gate (open).

There is a short 6' passage and then another wall with a doorway. It is not clear why they built the additional wall.

After this the passage opens out into a bigger chamber which is littered with remnants of the experiments. There is not that much to see, a lot of polystyrene insulation and quite a bit of rusting dexion. There are a few bits of wire and various brackets bolted to the wall, but that's all :-(.

The passage continues and narrows to the original dimensions and some stoping from the upper levels intrudes on the RHS. After a while there is a vertical shaft in the roof and daylight (actually green vegetation) can be seen. The shaft has a set of ladders and platforms on one side. We did not investigate the state of these as the top of the shaft is almost certainly barred. We later deduced this was the original air-shaft and it a subsequent trip showed that access is prevented by substantial girders.

The passage continues and there are a couple of ore chutes and then there are a couple of very deep shafts in the floor which span the width of the passage.
The first is completely open and made us wish we hadn't used the safety rope so early. It can be crossed by bridging the passage carefully and making use of the RHS edge as a foot hold. The next shaft was spanned by some very dodgy timber. Dennis went first and one timber cracked. Dave followed and accidently dislodged it. Its a long way down and the thumps and bangs echoed up the shaft. The photo shows a couple of bits of railway line inserted for the return crossing!

The passage deteriorates after this and there are several large roof falls and after crawling over the last one of these it looks like the passage is blocked. We used a couple of bits of railway line to span the gap left by the fallen timber and made our way back to the Tidal Experiment.

In the passage outside the experiment is an easy climb up on the RHS which leads to a higher passage running parallel to the experimental area. There was a few pieces of cable and some equipment mountings. The passage was partly collapsed after a few hundred feet and was not explored further.

Back at the main passage there is a hole in the floor on the RHS (facing the brick wall) and also a RHS passage. It wasn't easy to get a view down the hole and so this will have to be investigated with SRT gear some other time.

The RHS passage is more interesting and after a short distance there is a set of ladders and staging which leads down to level 3. The top ladder looks in moderate condition, the next two look rather better. We decided that it was not worth climbing down without a safety rope and SRT gear as the condition of the platforms was unknown and it is reported that the ladders stop 40' above the level 3 adit!. The compressed air pipes look like a good belay.

The passage carries on and splits several times, but each time there is a dead end. We guess these were mainly exploratory digs looking for splits in the main ore body.

A return was made to the dodgy T junction and on the way out the side passages noted in the original trip were examined. All of these lead to dead ends, but one does have a cleft in the ceiling leading to the upper stopes. It doesn't look worth exploring and there was a lot of loose rock around.

Total Trip time about 2 hours