Contributor Leaderboard

Actually, and you may appreciate this merc, I used to write stuff up on my shop windows advertising my promos.......and spelt some of the words wrongly! Surprising how many people came in to tell me anti-freeze wasn't spelt Aunty Freeze! This simple trick has many people talking and a ,lot of kids writing in! They all now get free rides this weekend! Ill get a pic later cannylass I have a photoshoot to do this afternoon anyway.................ohhhh get him!

Doesn't seem any other reason to mine these tunnels in what would have been torturous conditions,with very poor ventilation,and I am very experienced on that issue,thinking about what it was like in some of the pits I worked in.These miners would most likely have been the Monks,who were among the first to mine coal for the fires of their monasteries...they didn't know when they were tired!! They would natch away all day with a crude pick,straight off the solid,no explosives...for a pail or two of coal!! But remember,these tunnels are not in coal seams,they are what is correctly termed as "Cross-measure Drifts",meaning they are driven at an angle,either incline or anti-cline,through differing types of strata,so they would originally encounter pretty soft clay,then progressively hard sandstone,shale,maybe thin coal seams,more sandstone,more shale,["Blue" to us miners],and so on. Roof water would also have been a problem in places,especially as they got down to the river level,you just need to walk down there and see all the springs oozing out of the exposed strata on the riverbank sides. We had it rough in the pits,but I wouldn't have liked to have been on those tunneling projects! There were about 40 bell-pits mined by the Monks of old,at Nedderton Village,on both sides of the mound after you pass through the main village street,where the "new" estates were built upon. There were a lot of old workings in the seams,very shallow,about 20 feet down,where Bower Grange is built,where primitive picks and shovels and other bits of gear were found,left abandoned by the Monks of old,so that's how I base my assumptions as to who might have dug these tunnels out. There's no doubt in my mind that secrecy was a prime factor! Also,nothing comes free,so where did the funding for these long term projects come from?,somebody had to pay for materials,ventilation was most likely to have been provided like old-fashioned coal-mining,that is.....erecting a centre hanging "Brattice cloth",all the way,with a fire at the entrance,drawing air out of one section,which in turn,pulled fresh air [ excruciatingly poor!!!],down the other side of the brattice......can you picture it?[this is how we had to clear any quantities of Methane or Blackdamp,even in relatively modern times,until an auxiliary fan could be brought in.] Aye,methinks the only people with real money were the religious fraternity,Bishop of Durham owned Northumberland,did he not?,please correct me if I am wrong on any points here!!!! Er!!,upon proof-reading,it looks like I am saying we used the fire system in more modern times!!!,definitely not!,it was the brattice cloth we used to use,and when it was wet,you couldn't lift the sod![and it stunk wi mould!]