Location

On the Old Man of Coniston

SD 275979

Directions

word by J from aditnow

"Basically, its on the main tourist route up the Old Man which connects with the Walna Scar Road. You head up the track, past the Blue Slate quarry ruins (which are very impressive in their own right!), continue upward until you pass the Saddlestone Quarry. Once at this point the path continues on upwards, skirting the eastern side of the quarry-follow it until it bends around to the right. At this point if you leave the path and scramble straight up and then head left towards the scree/slate waste tips-head for the top of the first one you see and you'll be able to see the remains of the cableway. This is outside the entrance to Upper Mosshead. The entrance is immediately behind all the winding/processing ruins-it looks collapsed but behind the debris pile is the opening. Nice level, ends in a large chamber-about 100 feet high. This connects with the level high above (Spion Kop) but that's a real trek to get up to and tbh isn't worth it!

Instead, if you look down from the outside of Upper Level you will be able to see the platform below of Middle Level-short scramble down, has lots of relics including an impressive old winch-well worth it.

Short distance below that is Low Level-though this working isnt very big""

We also when up from the upper Mosshead entrance and found another adit which was still short but did have a very big chamber in it.


Access

Unknown. No Gate.



Suggested Equipment

None (copper mine - full srt if you are mad enough to try it)


Length

All short, with only one way in and out (copper mine - unknown)


Flood Risk

None. (copper mine is mostly flooded)


Notes

TBH it's a long trek up for very little mine, there a couple of small adit on the way up but again are very short and blocked. On the way down we stopped off to look in a couple copper mines, one was flooded the next was short and roped off in both directions one way was a flooded level with no floor the other way just had no floor. the last one which is behind the YHA building is the deep shaft level (I think) it goes in about 700ft before getting to a cross road, to the left is a collapse which was passable but look very nasty and about to collapse some more at any time. straight on was a flooded shaft then a short walk to another flooded shaft again with a nasty look collapse at the end, to the right look like a track we went down a little before deciding is was more likely to be a suspend floor so decided to call it a day, while we still could.

The Main entrance is about this adit, but you can scramble down by the water tub and come out at this level.

The open part of the Quarry

One of the middle adits

Walk up to the top Adit

Great Views

Railway of death.

Newbies

Water Butt

I did say don't move!!

I went up to this mine yesterday, the weather was typically march weather....WET!.

It's a long way up to this mine (approx 650m)and I should have taken Richard's advice of parking at walna scar rather than in the village, but the waterfalls were very pretty on the way up, so it wasn't all lost.
Cloud was down, the weather was appalling and navigating up to the mine was a little challenging once you get off the path. But I found it....

Some very interesting winches, bits of aerial runway, and other rusty metal stuff near to the adit entrance which was worth the walk up to.
I went in the middle adit, lots of interesting artifacts still in place, but this is not a big mine....it was definitely a good little explore for my solo self.
I also had a look on the top adit...be decided to descend back to the middle rather than the squeeze through a very wet entrance.

I really wanted to go up to Spion Kop and have a look in the lower adit, but time was against me as needed to be in Keswick by 5pm.

I took the more obvious route down on the eastern side of the quarry following the dubious fence line.

Definitely have lots of unfinished business here, not least that I didn't have a look in any of the copper mines.