A Local Lead Mine, Derbyshire

Karen had arranged for a winching trip in local Lead Mine (the landowner doesn't want it publicised so I won't say which Mine or where). The plan was for older members of Orpheus CC to be winched in and out of the mine as part of the 60th Anniversary. Unfortunately there weren't many takers so Pete Wagstaff, Paul Thorne, Mat and Nikki Adlam-Styles, Mike Moore, Jenni Hargreaves, myself and Boyd Potts had a trip being guided by Martin Longe who we have met several times on Alt Tuesday trips, etc. while John operated the winch and Karen kept him company (she had been in the mine before and had a pulled muscle).
I was third down and it was a nice smooth and slow ride. We were dropped down about 65 metres with a couple of railway sleepers across the shaft which continued down to further lower levels.
Once all were down, Martin led off and after s short distance we dropped down a short climb with a handline and then with a bit of hand and knees crawling and walking we first saw the bottom of a Shaft which had quite a lot of flowstone, a coffin level and then the very large Chamber with a pool of water at one end. More crawling with lots of choices of route where we had to retrace our steps and the arrive at a hands and knees crawl which popped out in a window requiring a short, careful traverse and short fixed ladder climb into more recent workings. We ascended a ramp to more workings on a higher level. There were several routes to follow including one leading past the bottom of the entrance shaft at the lowest level. After a Mars Bar break, we dropped back down the ramp and back up a short iron ladder and returned to the route we had followed on the way in. We were soon past another short iron ladder, back up the handline climb and at the foot of the entrance shaft. We clambered up some steps to on side of the shaft and had a look at the remaining parts of the mine.
We climbed up to a rising passage, including some initials on the wall. This lead to a sloping passage with a flowstone floor which eventually branched. Boyd took the left-hand branch and I followed yet more sloping passage with a flowstone floor now lower than hands and knees size. This eventually broke into a standing-size section with stacked deads and a right-angle bend which led to yet more flowstone floor and even lower than before. Around another right-angle bend the passage was even lower so I reversed back to the standing up section where I met Paul Thorne arriving up the slope. He continued on to where I had turned back and agreed it was getting lower. He followed another bend and I waited while Mike, Pete Wagstaff and Boyd came past and while Pete and Boyd followed Paul, Mike and I returned back down to the entrance shaft. Mike had kept his harness on so he went back up while I put mine on and followed him up to find Karen with here camera at the top and Jenni sitting nearby.
Soon all the others came up one-by-one and after John had packed all up, we walked back to the farm yard where we had parked and got changed. After a chat to John, we all headed off home or elsewhere. An excellent trip into a nice, interesting mine.