History

The genesis of the Tamar Mining Group
 From ‘Tamar Moles’ to ‘Tamar Mining Group’.

1995 saw the first stirrings of what was to become the Tamar Mining Group. It coincided with Rick Stewart  starting work at Morwellham Quay (home to the George and Charlotte - a copper mine with a railway running through it!).  Rick soon fell into the clutches of the infamous Colin West who also worked at Morwellham. This alliance was to be the undoing of Rick, for whilst he had ventured into the odd ironstone mine in Yorkshire, metal mines were something of a closed book; Col decided  to convert Rick to the true faith and dragged him (kicking and screaming) into various ochre filled grot holes.

During 1995/1996 Rick and Colin explored most of the easily explorable mines in the valley, favourites during this period included Bedford Consols and the Tavistock Canal Tunnel with its associated mines.

1997 was a pivotal year for the group: Firstly it discovered the delights of adapting vertical caving techniques to mine exploration, which gave access to mines such as William and Mary, Wheal Crowndale and Devon Great Consols. Secondly with the addition of Ian Doidge and Neil a loose alliance was formed answering to the name of the Tamar Moles. Between 1997 and 1999 the group produced five issues of Tamar Mole, a somewhat idiosyncratic and erratic journal. The late lamented Tamar Mole evolved into Ricks’ publishing project the Tamar Mining Press.   Thirdly (and perhaps most importantly) it started digging.

For it’s first foray into the world of digging the group chose Wheal Russell Great Lode. This was a good choice for a first dig, consisting as it did of a blocked adit with few real technical difficulties. Work started in April 1997 when Rick rather optimistically attacked the adit with his entrenching tool. By the end of July the adit was open giving access to around 800 yards of mine. In spite of the coincidence of dates the group had nothing to do with the river turning red in mid July – honest guv!

The Wheal Russell project had whetted the groups appetite for digging and by August it was casting around for a new project.  It looked at three potential sites: A trial at Morwellham, Bedford Consols Deep Adit and George & Charlotte Middle Adit.  The group rejected Middle Adit, as being too difficult, Bedford Consols was too far from a decent track so, by a process of elimination, it decided to have a look at the trial at Morwellham.

The Morwellham trial was interesting in that very little if anything was known about it and it looked to be heading into a blank area on the map.  The site had been discovered and dug by Morwellham staff in the late 1980s/early 1990s who had managed to push through a couple of collapses before being repulsed by a rather nasty choke 250 yards in. In the intervening period the portal had collapsed again and a fair bit of work was required to get back in. Luckily  the group were able to use a tramway put in by the initial diggers. Being of a technical bent it mechanised the process with the addition of a compressor and air winch. Unfortunately the tramway only extended one hundred yards or so up the level it was therefore decided to attack the terminal choke with a drag bucket and hope that the spoil could be stacked in the level as the group pushed forward. Work started on the terminal choke in August 1998. Progress was rapid and the group were soon able to drive a bar through the choke, this was accompanied by a terrifying rush of water which saw them  legging it at high speed down the level, Neil excelling himself with a spirited climb up an air shaft. By the end of September they had managed to push a wormhole dig through the choke and into new ground. This extension was somewhere in the region of one hundred yards ending in a forehead.  On the one hand this was disappointing, more positively the group had pushed the level to a definite conclusion. During the course of this dig the group pushed through a collapsed shaft. As there was a shaft in the field above, it blithely assumed that the two were one and the same.  The error was only discovered later when a passing British Telecom van sunk in a previously unidentified shaft (which had been undermined by the dig – whoops!)

1999 saw the group take a break from digging and instead spent numerous evenings rooting about under Kit Hill.  During the Kit Hill explorations it tended to use the middle car park, but were not they only users of this car park. Of an evening, it seemed very popular amongst “single men”; the group often wondered what they made of them, kitted out with straps and harnesses!!  Whilst on the subject of bizarre practices  Rick was spending a large part of his time caving on Mendip, fortunately he has since seen the light and has returned to the true faith.

The new millennium saw the group casting around for a new project which is how it came to Shallow Adit.

The Shallow Adit project coincided with a number of changes to the group.  Most importantly it marked a distinct change in it’s digging techniques from cavers wormhole techniques to full blown recreational mining.

Allied to this the organisation of the group became more structured, becoming members of NAMHO and joining the (then) BCRA insurance scheme; it was around this time the group morphed from the Tamar Moles into the Tamar Mining Group. Sadly  Ian Doidge, a stalwart of the group, started to fade from the scene at this time, however the group still have high hopes that the call of the ochre will re assert itself and he will return to the fold.

The current (spring 2006) ‘active’ group members are Rick Stewart, Colin West, Bob Waterhouse, Bob Le Marchant and Lee Lamble.
 

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