Hi folks,

I must apologise if this has been discussed before, but I did make a quick search of the forum (and google) and couldn't find anything to answer my question.

I was out walking recently along the River Alyn at the back of the old Kwik Save store in Mold, near to where the footbridge crosses the river, and I saw that a brick lined tunnel had been partially exposed by some fallen earth.

The tunnel curves in a north easterly direction, and I know that there used to be some coal mines in that area which I why I guessed it could be mine related. I was wondering if any of you know what this feature is?

Regards

Sam

nice one Sam just a quickie does it 1 head towards any hillside, 2 were there any known coal mines in the area you are talking about, 3 adit levels drained water from all mines so they could work lower down in the viens without them flooding, rule of thumb the shaft would be up on a hill and were the base of this hill levelled out with the land they would dive a level to meet the nearest stream as thes channel always run down
hill pumps would then pump the water up the shaft into the level which would then run down into the stream hence the level being at the lowest point the higher the pumps nee to bring the water up the more it cost due to bigger pumps. these levels are usually 4 ft or more from wall to roof if any lower the may be water drains for the collection of surface water from roads etc.keep in touch as we may have a look at it.

regards mick

Thanks for your reply, Mick. It does head in the direction of higher ground, and there were several coal shafts in operation to the north and east during the C19th. The tunnel is approximately four feet high with an arched ceiling.

If it appears to run north East then it's running alongside the Alyn, going upstream. In that direction are some mills, so could be a culverted tailrace unlikely though. There is a coal mine up that way too.

If mine related then based on direction then perhaps a drainage adit for that mine? Perhaps they pumped the water up almost to shaft top then diverted it down the adit to keep the site dry.

hey ant if I have got a problem with spelling then you have got one repeating what people have all ready said
you parrot, your worse than mike and he,s a muppet, so it looks like it murf the dork ,mike the muppet and ant the parrot we just need one foe tim now and its a full house, no doubt muke will have an answer.

Clearly your not paying much attention to what I wrote. "If it appears to run north East then it's running alongside the Alyn, going upstream" the Upstream Alyn is North west.

Sam, You say it curves to the North East. The 1900 1:10,000 OS map shows an embankment that sort goes north and curves to the east, also visible on modern OS mapping. If we take this as being evidence of cut and cover then it leads to Argoed hall colliery, but more likely is that is is the remains of a defunct railway spur as by 1900 this colliery had closed.

Sadly as much as we would like to take a look, as this may be a coal mine, we will have to advise against it, the Coal authority get rather upset if you go in a coal mine, even those they don't know about.

The worst the coal authority will do is bulldoze the adits, I'd say go and look with a 4gas and keep it low key?

Joel this is on the public part of the forum. They may be watching....

Nant adda?

no nant adda is near cris ebbs house and drains bog mine

Ant89 wrote:
That is a tramway and can be traced on the Southern bank where the practice nets of the cricket club are.