A lovely sunny meander around Mapie Lead Mine deep in the heart of Derbyshire.
Litteraly abandoned int he middle of nowhere with lots of bits left to see, I have tried to give a bit of an overview below based on what I have read on various sites. Theres lots of gated mine shafts in the area, we found four just wandering around, and the slough which I fancy a look at once it gets a bit drier.
Also some facinating history attached to the site, in particular a long running battle with another local mine in the mid 1800's which lead to various attacks and saboutage ending with three miners at Magpie being killed when the opposing workers started a fire below ground.
Big thanks to HughieD for putting me onto this place.
To the left the old managers cottages, followed by the square smoke stack origionaly built for an older winding house now long gone and subsiquently attached to the newer winding house (pictured centre with the winding wheel still attached) by extending the underground flu.
Right is the iron headstock with the cable running into the most recent winder house. Behind that is the steam pumphouse building used to pump water from the mine.
This was later scaled down after a slough was built over a period of 8 years taking the mine water a mile out to a local river.
The powder (explosives) store
One of the many gated shafts
and finaly I thought the site was derelict so was quite suprised to see these little guys beavering away
(My daughter brought them along with her, off her train set... she thought it was most amusing )
Litteraly abandoned int he middle of nowhere with lots of bits left to see, I have tried to give a bit of an overview below based on what I have read on various sites. Theres lots of gated mine shafts in the area, we found four just wandering around, and the slough which I fancy a look at once it gets a bit drier.
Also some facinating history attached to the site, in particular a long running battle with another local mine in the mid 1800's which lead to various attacks and saboutage ending with three miners at Magpie being killed when the opposing workers started a fire below ground.
Big thanks to HughieD for putting me onto this place.
To the left the old managers cottages, followed by the square smoke stack origionaly built for an older winding house now long gone and subsiquently attached to the newer winding house (pictured centre with the winding wheel still attached) by extending the underground flu.
Right is the iron headstock with the cable running into the most recent winder house. Behind that is the steam pumphouse building used to pump water from the mine.
This was later scaled down after a slough was built over a period of 8 years taking the mine water a mile out to a local river.
The powder (explosives) store
One of the many gated shafts
and finaly I thought the site was derelict so was quite suprised to see these little guys beavering away
(My daughter brought them along with her, off her train set... she thought it was most amusing )
Last edited: