Just another exciting day with Geoff…
How it all began…
In 1932 Geoff’s father was a warden at Overton Hall Youth Hostel in Derbyshire.
Geoff has a set of photos on flickr named Overton hall.
Last week a lady called Maggie got in touch with Geoff after finding these photos on flickr.
She now lives in part of Overton hall and is keen to collect as much history about the place as possible.
Maggie told Geoff that this weekend they intended to open the Overton Lead mine once again,and he was more than welcome to attend.
So that’s how I found myself at Overton hall yesterday going down an old lead mine.
I 
was not quite sure what to expect and my first reactions were ones of shock.
To get into the mine you had to be winched down 80 foot on a small seat, through a man hole.
Thankfully I was given a hard hat to wear and a head torch.
While being winched down you became very aware of the beautiful stone that sparkled with the light from the head torch.
Once at the bottom I realised how wet and muddy it was,also how small the corridors and caves were but also how wonderful to see all the fossils and orange iron deposits.
We spent 3 hours walking, crawling and sliding through tiny gaps,amazing to think these used to be working mines where men/boys spent hours chiseling away for the lead. 
A truly wonderful day and many thanks must go to Maggie, Liz, Nick and The Wirksworth Mines research group for making it all possible.
After we all got safely out the mine Maggie gave us much needed refreshments and treated us to a tour round Overton hall.
Going up on the roof was the highlight for me, the views were spectacular and we got to see the beautiful Greenhouse and gardens.
It was hard to pick just 3 photos to post here as 273 fantastic photos were taken but they can all be seen here .
Certainly a day I will never forget 🙂
hi every one i am the one that caped this mine and re opend it i also caped brimstone just up the lane and dug it open ther is a good sough as well that i dug open down the valley liz from bristol knows of the sough its worth a visit and still requires some digging hope every one likes the mine ther is loads to do in this area just wish some one would do some digging and re open moor mines in the area
Pingback: A Bloghounds Roundup « Cherie’s Place
Wow that must have been a great day.. Sadly I’m not too good in enclosed spaces.
I’d be terrified to go into small spaces such as those Sally. Nothing ventured, nothing gained but I so couldn’t do it 🙂
Great post and what a girl, one minute up 2300 metres next deep in the bowels of the earth – totally fearless! Next is canyoning 🙂
What a wonderful day you had, with so much fascinating stuff to see and learn!
Great photos Sally. I don;t think I would be courageous enough to go down …but it does sound fascinating 🙂
Wow: potholing!
I so much wanted to get into that after I left school… never did though… (parental extreme anst was a contributing factor, they never wanted me to do any of the potentially dangerous things my entire future life was made up of the way I was concerned…))
Hey I didn’t realize you weren’t in my linxx; put you in there today tho
;->…
What courage you have. Admire your spirit to have a go immensley. I could not hae coped with the dark and small spaces, that drop 80ft in to a small space would have “did me.” completely.
I am so glad you had such an exciting and enjoyable time.
Well done you for giving it a go. A day I am sure you will never forget.
That looks very exciting and very interesting, I don’t think I’d be brave enough though to go into such a confined space!
Wow! that sounds like a fantastic day 🙂 I don’t think I am brave enough to go in such an enclosed space though. I am going to check out the rest of the photos now!