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Where am I?  DCC > ALDERLEY EDGE > VIRTUAL TOURS > ENGINE VEIN

ENGINE VEIN TOUR - UNDERGROUND

Here is the map of the mine again.  You can jump straight into the mine by clicking on a part of the map or you can follow the tour .  Clicking on most of the images will enlarge them.  Use the BACK button on your browser to return to the tour.

ENTRANCE	This is a picture of the smaller entrance that was originally built in 1982.  You are now in the entrance passage which was probably tunnelled in the nineteenth century to provide an easier route into the mine avoiding the open cutting.  Apart from a branch on the left (looking in) which used to connect to the mine further down, there is only one way to go.  At the inner end of the passage, you meet a temporary ramp which takes you down to the main passage.  Do you want to turn left or right .  Alternatively, you can go back to daylight .
BETWEEN THE RAMP AND THE CONCRETED ROOF	This way goes past the Roman passage.  If you go down the short slope, you will get to the area which has been capped with concrete .  Alternatively, you can turn back up the slope and resume your trip down the main passage .  However, don't go through this section until you have taken a look into the Roman passage on the North side.  This leads to Pot Shaft which was excavated to rock bottom where planks were found which dated it to the first century AD.  If you are already afraid of the dark, you could go back up the ramp to the entrance passage .
THE CONCRETE ROOF	When you reach the large chamber, look up at the roof and you will see that it is concrete.  This was put into the mine in 1982 to prevent silt getting in and to protect the public from the mine (and vice versa).  From the rather smelly chamber under the concrete, you can go on to the East End of mine or go back towards the entrance .  You can though take a short cut on your belly to Blue Shaft . You could even go down Ring Shaft to the bottom of the mine but you will need a rope to do so.  If you do abseil down, remember that you cannot come back up and you will need to find another way out!
EAST END	If you get past the top of the Ring Shaft area, you are in the East End.  Here you go past three shafts known as Plan B, Number 3 and Number 2 shafts.  Beyond Number 2 shaft, you get into the bottom of a recent dig, Number 1 shaft,  where the mine ran in.  You can get out to the surface this way if the entrance is open or else you have to go back to the concrete roof .  The picture shows the fault on the left and the mineral vein in the centre.  The passage as you enter the East End is about 1.5m high.
DOWN MAIN PASSAGE	This passage links the entrance ramp and the Roman Level to the deeper sections of the mine.  It is worth looking in the roof at the miners' timbers still in place and on the walls where you can see pickmarks and the evidence of old floor levels when Engine Vein was mined as a narrow vein, similar to Derbyshire Mines.  When you are in this part of the main passage, you can go back out or into the depths or down past the Roman level .
THE BRIDGE AND STAIRS	Joining the upper parts of the mine and the middle region is the bridge.  This bridge replaced a ladder climb down and awkward climb back up the other side.  Now there is an easy crossing to the further upper levels as well as stairs down into the middle of the mine.  The bridge was scrap from a marine diesel engine factory and the stairs were the fire escape from the Moss Rose Inn before it was [vandalised] modernised.  Stand on the bridge for a while and look up at the blue colour seeping through the roof.  Then you can either go down the stairs to the lower passage, go up towards the entrance or go into the further reaches of the upper passage .
BELOW BRIDGE	Below the bridge, there is a large chamber dug by the nineteenth century miners to extract the copper rich sandstone.  This is probably the highest chamber in the mine.  At one side is a short length of passage ending at a blank wall but the most noticeable feature is probably the railway and truck in the centre.  These were put in by the caving club in the 1980s shortly after the mine had been capped with concrete when the passage to Blue Shaft was excavated.  However, the design of the track is similar to that used in mines of the eighteenth century whilst the tub resembles a twentieth century side tipper.  You can go five ways out of this chamber.  One way is to go up the stairs towards the surface and upper chambers .  The second is to follow the rail track to the end where the waste from Blue Shaft passage was dumped and so on down to the Ripple Roof chamber .  The third and fourth ways are to follow Blue Shaft Passage itself either to the east or to the west , this being towards Blue Shaft itself.
UPPER PASSAGE TO BEAR PIT	There is a short section of large passage between the Bridge and Bear Pit where shotholes can clearly be seen on the northern wall of the mine.  This is unusual because most of the nineteenth century workings are on the south side of the fault.  Further on, the passage narrows as it crosses a rock bridge with a handpicked shaft on one side and the Bear Pit on the other.  With suitable tackle, you could descend Bear Pit but make sure you get off at the Blue Shaft passage unless you know the ore chute is open at the bottom .  The normal ways out of this section are though to go further west or east back to the Bridge .
BOTTOM OF MINE	You are  now at the bottom of the Engine Vein.  The Bear Pit and Blue Shaft hit the bottom level about 15m apart as the Bear Pit drops vertically through the mine whereas Blue Shaft goes down the 60° slope of the vein.  The bottom level is now known as the Hough Level but its name when in use is not known.  When the DCC reopened the Hough Level in the 1980s, it became immediately obvious that the northern part of the level had been mined in two phases, firstly in the eighteenth century when Charles Roe mined the Edge and secondly in the nineteenth century. A branch leads off the area to the ore chute at the bottom of Ring Shaft which is another way to the bottom of the mine.  There are therefore three ways to leave the area: to the north , to the south or up Blue Shaft .  Alternatively, you can go straight to the page that describes the Hough Level.
HOUGH LEVEL TO Brynlow	This section of the mine leads ultimately to Brynlow Mine.  On the way, you  pass the boat which was put into the mine in the 1930s.  The "dock" is at a point where the two tunnels, from Engine Vein and from Brynlow, met with an error of about 2m laterally and 0.5m vertically.  You can go out by swimming to Brynlow or can walk dry-shod back to the bottom of Bear Pit and Blue Shaft .
HOUGH LEVEL TO DICKENS WOOD	Between Bear Pit and the Edge, the Hough Level was driven at two period.  Originally it was a coffin level, probably driven to drain water from Engine Vein (which it still does) and then later it was enlarged to provide a haulage route from Pillar Mine, Doc Mine and the Opencast.  The picture shows Ian with his head and body in the coffin level section while the right hand part has been removed by blasting.  You can either leave at the Edge or go back to the bottom of Engine Vein .

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