What a splendid name for a coal mine! Strip and At It conjures up visions of hunky miners, stripped to the waist and singing merrily as they enthusiastically hack away at coal seams. I'm fully aware, though, that the truth was a lot less romantic. Work in those old mines, for men and boys, was dark, dirty and downright dangerous.
The tunnel marked on this old map has featured before in my blog, as I often pass the Trafalgar end on one of my favourite forest walks – or rather, it was one of my favourites before the path to the east of Trafalgar was reduced to a mud bath during recent forestry operations. Such are the joys of living in an actively managed forest. Thankfully, I know that Nature will eventually triumph over machinery and I shall return.
This is the Trafalgar portal, photographed in 2014. I had never seen the other end but access looked easy enough on the modern OS 1:25000 map, so last Monday, as part of a longer walk, I set out to find it. Again, I've marked the tunnel in red.
Strip and At It, together with Trafalgar Colliery, closed in 1925 and little evidence of its existence can be seen today. According to the local history society, these are possibly the remains of the engine house.
In common with almost all green spaces in the Forest, there's plenty of evidence that the feral boar have been here. These days it sometimes feels as if we live in a pig sty.
It didn't take long to find a hillside cutting that led to the tunnel. From the protective perimeter fence it was just possible to glimpse the tunnel portal, though it doesn't show in this photo.
It is, of course, highly reprehensible to attempt climbing over these protective fences, which have been thoughtfully installed for our protection. This is a respectable blog, written by a responsible adult...
... so I will leave to your imagination the methods I employed to obtain this photo!
Finally, it occurs to me that, were it not for the boar, Strip and At It would be an appropriate place in which to use ones Fern Ticket. You don't know what a Fern Ticket it? Dear me. I've spent out on quite a few of those in the past – mostly on and around Dartmoor, for reasons that elude me – though these days I confess to preferring my home comforts.
A fern ticket? I can make a guess, but will have to check with you off-blog I think!
ReplyDeleteIn my travels, I discovered that Brora in Sutherland was once the location for Britain's most northerly coal mine. When the seam was first exploited, the miners were let down a shaft to a bottle-shaped hewing area that lacked props and was prone to collapse. Astonishing what people were prepared to do for a job!
Lucy