tarboat's photos with the keyword: sparrowpit

The Peak Forest Mining Company, operated Coalpithole Mine extracting lead ore from 1858 to 1880. The No.10 shaft is under the grille in the right foreground. It is brick lined and around 618 feet deep, sunk through the shale to reach the ore bearing limestone at depth. No.8 shaft is in the trees beyond the pool and the line of the vein on Coalpithole Rake can be seen covered in trees as it runs across the shoulder of the hill. Mining here petered out in 1880 having seen a massive fall in productivity after water ingress overwhelmed the pumps in the mid 1870s. This panorama shows the blind valley running east from Sparrowpit towards Winnats Head. Rushup Edge is on the left whilst the abandoned Eldon Hill limestone quarry is to the right. Water here drains through the shales and into sink holes in the limestone on the right side of the valley from where it eventually finds its way underground towards Castleton.

A panorama of earthen kilns remains. Peak Forest was a large limeburning centre with earthen sale-kilns supplying lime on a commercial scale over a large area. The limekilns and their associated quarries and water heaps of this complex cover just over a square kilometre of ground. They are distributed in irregular clusters on either side of the 1751 turnpike road (A623). In total there are around 130 kilns on the site. The first records of limeburning in Peak Forest date from 1707 and it is known that the last kiln closed in 1823. New kilns tended to follow the quarrying across the hillside as old ones closed. It is likely that some burning was being undertaken here in the late 17th century. It has been suggested that there were normally no more than five kilns working at any one time. Best viewed LARGE .