Parys Underground Group

Grwp Tanddaearol Parys

Group News Letter - Issue Seventeen - Winter 2003

Now the real work begins !

It is the removal of water from the mountain, which has caught the imagination of both the public and TV companies over the last few months. However the real work of exploring and explaining the new areas of the mine that have been uncovered must now begin.

All in the group owe a lot to Dave Jenkins who has spent an enormous amount of time on his computer digitising some of the old maps. The use of his maps and his understanding of the mine has been invaluable in our exploration.

Many new areas have become accessible in the Parys and now also for the first time in 60 years the Mona Mine.

New discoveries are being made weekly. It is now a 2 hour round trip to get to the furthest reaches of the presently explored areas. However the access to some of these areas is dangerous and new routes will need to be established before further exploration is possible.

Oli Burrows has been amongst the leaders in pushing forward the known boundary of the mine and he has written one of the articles in this newsletter. I also hope that some of the photographs will wet the appetite of those who have not been under ground for some time.

As well as the underground work which will need to be done we have some surface work to continue. Work will soon restart on the “cabin” at the Parys footway entrance and also on the next stage of the exploration of the Dyffyn Coch adit within the Great opencast.

Another article has been written by one of our “members from across the waters”. He has written an article about himself and his impressions of the mine as a way of introducing himself to other members of the group.

The reopening of the mine and it’s exploration is exciting but we all know that the history of the mine goes back many years.

As in previous newsletter I have tried to include something new and something old about the mine. In this newsletter I have included an article on Bronze aged tools and also some wood cuttings from the middle ages which show the sorts of equipment which may still have been in use during the early days after the rediscovery of copper at the mountain in the 1750s.

The many recent developments and discoveries at the mine has meant that the group web site has been looking a little out of date for some months.

I have been working on a revamp of the site over the last few weeks. Some things are being removed and some new sections are being added. I hope that the new web site will be completed and available on line by November. The address will remain www.parysmountain.co.uk

On a more personal note many of you will have heard of the impending closure of the Great Lakes Plant at Amlwch. Like many others I will be made redundant early in the New Year.

This is the 17^th newsletter that I have produced over the last 5 years. I have enjoyed researching the mines and recording the development of the group during this time. However I think now would be a good time to pass the Editorship and production of the newsletter onto someone else.

With reluctance this will hence be the last newsletter that I will produce. I am sure that someone else will pick up the gauntlet at the next AGM in January.

But before that I hope to see all of you at the xmas party in the Lastra on 19^th December.

Neil Summers.

New discoveries in the Mona Mine

and some depth measurements in Parys Mine

Ever wondered how deep the mine really is?

I recently took down an altimeter and recorded the readings shown in the table below, relative to the entrance door. One should of course remember that the ‘levels’set were in fact often not exactly level but slightly inclined so that water would drain naturally – an example of a drainage channel can be seen at the side of the 20 fathom passage running north from the ladder down on the 20 fathom level towards the Grand Stope. Thus the 16 fathom level will not be exactly 16 fathoms throughout. Great precision is therefore pointless, and for convenience my measurements were all taken at the Parys footway intersections.

	Nominal Depth (ft.)	Measured Depth (ft.)	Corrected Depth (ft.)
Mine entrance	0	0	-24
10 fathom	-60	-36	-60
16 fathom	-96	-69	-93
20 fathom	-120	-98	-122
30 fathom	-180	-157	-181
45 fathom (base of 90ft stairway)	-270	-236	-260
45 fathom (Carreg y doll chamber)	-270	-248	-272
Windmill		+51	27
Trig point		+52	28

It is immediately apparent that my readings are consistently less than the nominal depths. This is clearly due to the mine using a different datum level. By applying a correction of 24ft. a remarkably near match can be obtained. I have heard it said that the mine measured depths relative to the base of the windmill. While this may be true it is clear that the windmill was not the primary datum point (indeed, of course, it was not there until relatively late in the mine’s history) as it is about 50 feet above the Parys Footway entrance.

The primary datum must be somewhere roughly halfway in height between the Footway and the windmill. Ideally it should be on a point with good lines of sight to the rest of the mine, although this is really not essential as a number of secondary datum points (such as the windmill) could be established in different areas.

My first thought was that it was that it might be at the Parys mineyard, but this proves to be slightly lower than the Parys footway entrance. The primary datum was presumably established at an appropriate point early in the mine history, certainly by the start of deep mining and could of course have been covered by later tipping or removed altogether when the Great Opencast was created with secondary datum points being triangulated from it before its disappearance.

The Parys Footway is thought to be relatively late and there is therefore no reason to suppose that it need be in the vicinity of this. Has anybody any thoughts where it might have been?

Turning now to the Mona mine. They used a different datum. Dave Jenkins tells me that this was the Mona adit entrance. Certainly their primary datum was much lower than Parys Mine as they had a +12 fathom level as well as levels going down. This datum would certainly make sense if early workings were centred around the Golden Venture with the Mona adit as the principal access adit to the underground workings.

The importance of accurate surveying becomes apparent when considering the joint drainage level (itself pre 1820) – both mines needed to connect with this while approaching it from opposite sides, and with both having to survey from different external reference points.

We can now access the Mona mine from the joint drainage level, which was the Mona 20 fathom level. Higher levels were at 10 fathoms, zero fathoms and +12 fathoms.

	Measured depth (ft)	Height Relative to 45fm. level	Nominal Depth relative to their datum
Carreg y Doll chamber	-248	0	0
Foot of Mona ladder (20 fathom)	-236	12	0
Sidney Shaft (Mona 10 fathom)	-192	56	60
Mona 0 fathom – area 1	-103	145	120
Mona 0 fathom – area 2	-115	133
Henry's shaft (Mona)	-56	192
Mona footway (surface)

From here we climb two ladders lashed together (the lower an original!) to reach an intermediate level about 25ft higher which branches left to Cairns shaft at the level where it is boarded over. This was originally one of the main pumping shafts and continues down to submerged workings. Two pump rods remain leaning against the walls. To the right of the entrance passage a series of three short ladders and a stone walled ascending passage leads to Sidney Shaft (which is open down to the water level), from which levels run in two directions. This point is measured at 56 feet above the joint drainage level and thus corresponds to the Mona 10 fathom level. Passage through very dubious timbering leads back to Cairns shaft some 40 feet above the boarding, where there is a balance bob (designed to counteract the weight of the pump rods).

Nearby another passage leads on to a further ascending walled section finishing at a short vertical ladder which emerges in a stoped area. Chambers from here extend back down to the 10 fathom level, and also up a steep white slope to a high platform in what turns out to be the base of another chamber.

I first reached this by climbing this unstable slope. However, Dave discovered a convoluted but much more user friendly route to reach the same point. About 10 feet below the level of the platform this route traverses a short length of passage which continues in both directions (partially water filled in one direction) but is as yet unexplored. Depth measurement suggests that this is part of the zero fathom level (labelled area 1 on the table).

Our established route now continues up spoil from the platform to reach a short (15ft.) climb which would benefit from the insertion of a fixed handline. A few feet from the head of this climb is Henry’s Shaft. This shaft (which has not been explored) extends upwards to surface but appears to be boarded not far below – probably at the zero fathom level. The indicated depth at this point is -56ft., or 192 ft. (32fm.) above the joint drainage level. This corresponds well with the +12 fathom level marked on the 1854 mine abandonment plans.

An extensive passage with sections of poor timbering runs westward from this point, eventually reaching a short scramble to a small ladder giving access into a rising passage. From here a scramble up leads to a final steep stone walled and floored passage, the head of which is timbered over. This is the top of the Mona Footway. We are here, literally, within handshaking distance of the surface - in the bottom of the conical depression that Dave Jenkins had already identified as the Mona Footway entrance.

Returning to the +12fm. passageway. At one point along this another passage leads southwards (into deep mud), and beside it a ladderway goes downwards. On our arrival the top ladder was somehow precariously balanced on the second, but fell as soon as DJ touched it (at least that is his story!).

However, further exploration in the area of the Mona Footway gave access to large stopes, and at their base a lower passage, which led back to the foot of these ladders – the point being demonstrated by having parties on both levels. Within a few minutes members had demonstrated that despite the missing ladder it was still possible (albeit rather risky) to climb both up and down here between the levels.

Measurement at the foot of the ladder suggests that, as might be expected, this is also part of the zero fathom level (area 2). Initial measurement indicates a difference in height between here and area 1 of around 12 feet, but this may be due to inaccuracies in measurement and possibly some slope on the passages.

From this point passages extend north, south, east and west. South soon becomes a large passage (c. 2m. x 2m.) but end abruptly after about 50m. North continues a considerable distance without significant workings. At present is has been explored as far as a natural dam. Beyond it continues but with deep deposits on the floor and limited headroom above the water. To continue would inevitably damage formations and this has not therefore been pursued. East is about 3 feet deep in water. Although a promising direction, it is well lined with straws and for reasons of conservation has only been explored for about 50m.

In terms of artefacts we have made a few finds – three old bottles by the Mona entrance ladder, the remains of a number of pump rods, at least one of which contains some of it’s internal workings, a balance bob and box , a round piece of wood provisionally identified as part of a pulley block or sheave near Sidney shaft and perhaps the strangest find of all a 5 foot pipe manifold made of lead.

So far two maulstones have been found just below the Mona footway entrance which have probably come in from surface have been found ,there is no trace of in-situ Bronze Age workings (DJ had hoped that these might be accessible just west of the Mona Footway), however, there are several passageways and chambers with nice formations, and obviously still plenty of scope for further exploration.

All that remains is to tie the Mona depths into the Parys Mine figures. The measured depth of the zero fathom level as around -110ft. relative to the Parys Footway entrance. Unfortunately surface measurement at the Mona Adit entrance indicates that this is some 162ft. below the same point. So therein lies another problem!

Oli Burrows

Did you see us on the telly box ???

At times over the last few months it seems that there have been more television crews on the mountain than Pug members. The most prominent program to date was one in “The Restoration” series recently shown on BBC2.

The format of the program resulted in some of the features on the mountain and at Amlwch port being in competition against other buildings in Wales to receive money from a fund set up to pay for their restoration.

The debate over the quality and content of the program continues but what can be said with certainty is that much interest was sparked in the area following the program. It is amazing the number of local people who did not appreciate the history that they have on their own doorstep.

The restoration series was shown nationally but it was a local HTV program, which showed more of the underground activity, which had taken, place during the dewatering operation. Interest in this operation was not confined to just the Amlwch area. A talk on the operation was given at the recent BCRA conference to a packed audience.

One of the most exciting recent filming on the mountain was for a series to be called “Extreme Archaeology”. This will be shown next year on Channel 4. Over a 5 day period a number of TV presenters and professional archaeologists studied the mountain and underground with various scientific techniques. The aim was to try and discover more bronze aged material in the newly opened mine workings. We will all have to wait and see the TV program to discover what the outcome of their exploration was.

Illustrations of early mining techniques from

De Re Mettalica by Georgious Agricola

A brief insight into the life and times of one of the PUG members

Hi. Or more correctly, Bore da, Prynhawn da or Noswaith dda depending whether you’re reading this whilst eating your cornflakes, lying in bed at night with nothing else better to do, or sometime between the two !

My name is Frank Jackson, aged 52, married, one child, living in Alderley Edge Cheshire.

I receive regular e-mail updates on PUG activities from Neil, Ann and Olly and I can see from the volume of ‘e-addresses’, not to mention those without access to the internet, there appears to be an ever increasing number of PUGgers.

Whilst I meet with, and see, the usual motley crew from various angles some of which are not entirely complimentary, on my all too infrequent Wednesday night visits to the Pilot Boat via the Parys mine it’s more than likely that, for whatever reason, I may never get to see some you, and vice versa. Although you may be none the worse for that !

So, I thought it might not be a bad idea if, through the Newsletter I became the first person to volunteer and introduce myself to each of you who, like me, share a common if, to the ‘non-believers’, a somewhat ‘strange and unusual’ interest in the netherworld !

I’m employed as a Procurement Manager at the Organisation most of you may have heard of, and some of you will have had a close working relationship’ with, the Environment Agency of England and Wales.

I’m based at their North West Regional Office in Warrington, although PUG’s usual contact with the EA. is through its offices in Parc Menai, Bangor.

I’ve been with the EA. for just over 10 years and I’m responsible for the commercial aspects of all coastal and river civil engineering flood defence and maintenance projects down the western side of the Pennines from the Scottish Border to South Cheshire.

I also believe that my 'Region' may soon have a greater involvement in major flood defence construction works across North Wales, including Ynys Môn.

If that happens, I’m really looking forward to attending on-site meetings, meeting local people and talking to the construction companies employed to do the work on our behalf. As a matter of interest one of the more recent projects carried out by the Environment Agency on Anglesey involved the renewal of the tidal sluice gates at the mouth of the Afon Cefni in Malltraeth.

From a personal point of view I’ve been regularly visiting Anglesey for more than forty years and I’ve come to know it and some of its local people very well. So much so that I’m trying to learn how to speak Welsh.

Without fear of contradiction or hesitation I can now ask in fluent Welsh “Where is please excuse you, the town local place into which garlic bread eaten ?”

Trouble is, being born and brought up on the Pennines in the West Riding of Yorkshire, I suspect I may speak Welsh with a broad Yorkshire accent; now there’s a first !

I used to go onto Parys mountain at a time when many of the old shafts were still open to the surface and when there were fewer messages warning the public (i.e. annual tourists) to beware of the dangers !

But, having a long-standing interest in all things involving geology and industrial archaeology, steam engines, dark satanic cotton mills, quarries, tunnels, and mines, I always wondered what it was like ‘down there’ below this desolate yet brightly coloured lunar surface.

I’ve been down, or in, many different types of mines, such coal, iron ore, limestone, gold, lead, and living as I do in Alderley Edge, copper mines. Some abandoned, some not.

Whenever I see a man-made hole in the ground I feel an irresistible urge to go into it. Suppose the psychologists would have a field-day analysing that particular urge !

But, a man’s got to know his limitations and there are some holes in the ground even I wouldn’t go into, unlike some of the PUGgers I could mention.

When I first met our erudite Access Officer (aka. Allan@thecookingsherry) whilst I was exploring the geology of the mountain one evening a couple of years ago, he offered me the opportunity to go down the mine and take me, as his hugely appreciative (captive ?) audience of one, on his “internationally renown” impromptu guided tour.

In hindsight, was that a wise thing to do ?? Who knows, but the rest, as they say, is history.

I now endeavour to go down the mine about half a dozen times throughout the year and each time, I can see the big changes as the water levels drop from one month to the next and the underground tunnel system is expanded accordingly.

I have now learned more about the 'hidden' workings of Parys mine than I could ever hope to have done from merely reading about it and standing on the surface.

Through this newsletter I want to say a big “thank you“ to all the PUG members including Ron, Neil, Anne, Olly, Lionel, Robert and all the others too numerous to mention for their technical knowledge, endeavour beyond the call of duty, infectious enthusiasm, acerbic wit, camaraderie, and no little patience, which makes it all so enjoyable and without whom the Parys Mine could not have survived in its present condition and for the benefit of future generations to appreciate.

Diolch yn fawr a mi welai chi eto yn fuan

Frank Jackson

The origins of bronze aged tools

The earliest metal goods probably came to Britain from Ireland. Paul Budd reports…

Today, we are entering a new phase of research on Britain's earliest copper mines. Much of the excavation and recording has taken place, telling us when and how the mining and ore processing was carried out and, to some extent, about the people who did it; but where did all the copper go? A long-standing objective in archaeometallurgy has been to try to link Bronze Age metal tools and weapons to their sources. Now, perhaps for the first time, scientific techniques are beginning to tell us something about this vital key to understanding the organisation of prehistoric metal production and exchange.

Until the early 1980s only one prehistoric copper mining site was known in the British Isles. The site, Mount Gabriel on the Mizen peninsular in the far south-west of Ireland, was simply a cluster of primitive opencast workings and shallow galleries dug into the hillside. The mine was considered unique, perhaps owing its survival to the extremely poor quality of its copper ores and therefore to the lack of subsequent interest in mining them. When it was investigated in the 1960s, it was generally agreed that virtually all the evidence for early copper mining in Britain had been obliterated by later activity. Copper mining peaked in the late 19th century, by which time mechanised techniques were responsible for radical alteration of many mining landscapes. Survival of prehistoric evidence seemed unlikely. Today, this pessimism has been dispelled.

Thanks very largely to the (often unpaid) efforts of a small number of dedicated field workers, some 30 probable or definite prehistoric copper mining sites have now been identified in the British Isles, of which the Great Orme, with its visitors' centre and guided tours of the Bronze Age mine workings, is the most impressive. Many of these sites survive, despite all the odds, on surface outcrops of copper which, in the historic period, became well known and highly productive. In addition to Mount Gabriel and the Great Orme the best known and best investigated sites to date are at Parys Mountain in North Wales, Cwmystwyth in central Wales, Alderley Edge in Cheshire and Ross Island near Killarney in South-West Ireland.

Over the last decade or so, the antiquity of mining at these sites has been firmly established, mostly by radiocarbon measurements on charcoal and sometimes bone sealed within the mining waste. In addition to the mine, Ross Island also features a `work camp' area from which radiocarbon dates have been obtained. All of the sites were in use during the Bronze Age. Ross Island appears to be the earliest, with dates clustering in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. This is just prior to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in Ireland - the period associated with the introduction of metallurgy in the British Isles. The other sites were all in use at much the same time spanning the Early Bronze Age and earlier Middle Bronze Age from c 1900-1200BC. But what of the evidence for the copper they produced?

Bronze Age metalwork has an enduring fascination and has been the subject of study for two centuries or more. In the latter half of the current century, typological classification of metalwork has given way to a developing interest in its composition in the hope that stylistic or regional metal groups would share characteristic patterns of trace elements which might then be linked to particular ore sources. In the British Isles, significant changes in the impurity pattern of copper and bronze metalwork do occur over time and between different regions, but attempts to relate this to the general pattern of copper mineralisation in the British Isles have always been inconclusive.

Now, with the mines identified, it is becoming possible to develop a clear idea of the impurity patterns likely to have resulted from smelting the ores from particular places. A detailed mineralogical survey by Rob Ixer at the University of Birmingham is now revealing just such information. The work is painstaking and highly skilled. A detailed understanding of metallogenesis and ore geology are required even to select representative mineral samples for further study. Ore petrography is then used to identify the mineral suite and build up a picture of the formation process (or processes) and subsequent geological history of the deposit. Only with this level of understanding is it possible to identify the ore that was actually mined from a particular site.

The results of Ixer's analyses are fascinating. With one exception, all of the sites investigated can only have produced virtually pure (impurity free) copper. This contrasts strongly with the Bronze Age metalwork for which common impurity patterns have emerged.

The earliest metalwork, with a primary distribution in South-West Ireland, often contains considerable arsenic - sometimes several per cent - with lesser amounts of antimony and silver. Later, at roughly the time that mines such as the Great Orme and Cwmystwyth were in use, these compositions give way to copper with a higher nickel content. By this stage the copper is most often alloyed with tin to form bronze and has a wider distribution across upland areas of Britain.

Of the mines investigated, only Ross Island, the earliest, produced copper with a significant arsenic-antimony-silver impurity pattern. Could it be that Ross Island, perhaps together with as yet undiscovered mines in the region, was the dominant source of the earliest copper before it became mixed and diluted with the pure copper from Wales and northern England? Were Killarney's Beaker Culture people our first metallurgists? If so, where did the nickel come from in the later metal? Does it represent the growing status of alternative groups of metallurgists with their own as-yet-undiscovered copper supply?

Answers to some of these questions are now emerging from lead isotope analyses of the ores. The isotopic composition of lead within an ore deposit relates to its geological formation process and age, with the result that different deposits can have characteristic values (although they sometimes overlap). Lead isotopes are unchanged by the smelting process so that the signature of the ore is carried by the finished copper.

Brenda Rohl, working at Oxford University's Isotrace Laboratory, has analysed ores from many of the newly discovered mines as well as numerous Early and Middle Bronze Age copper and copper-alloy artefacts. Some of the earliest, `type A', metal tools do have isotopic signatures which match ores from Ross Island, but the mine is unusual in having two types of ore with quite distinctive isotope signatures. Some `type A' tools have isotope ratios which suggest they were made by mixing the two.

For the later metalwork analysed by Rohl the picture is more complex with a pattern indicative of the mixing of copper from multiple sources. Only at Ross Island is there evidence of prehistoric metal processing in Britain, and in general we do not know how far ores were transported for smelting. However, the mixing is less likely to have resulted from the original smelting process, and was probably rather the consequence of later melting-down and recycling of artefacts from different sources. This is a relatively simple operation and may have been performed, perhaps from an early date, more commonly than is traditionally thought.

Occasionally, however, very distinctive patterns emerge from which specific conclusions can be drawn. In one case analysis of five of the nickel-rich `type B' artefacts shows them to have a highly unusual lead isotope composition resulting from uranium associated with the ore. There are only a handful of deposits, all in Cornwall, where such nickel- and uranium-bearing copper ores occur.

The discovery of the copper mines has undoubtedly given a boost to archaeometallurgy in the British Isles, at last allowing us to bridge the gap between artefacts and their sources. Clearly much remains to be done, but interesting results are already emerging which reinforce the suggestion of an early metallurgical focus in South-West Ireland. Their products were soon joined by, and mixed with, those of other miners working the copper deposits of Wales, northern England and, almost certainly, Cornwall, where prehistoric mines may yet be awaiting discovery.

Dr Paul Budd is NERC Advanced Research Fellow in Science-based Archaeology at the University of Bradford

From “British archaeology” Issue no 36, July 1998