Matlock Book – update – Masson shafts photos

H

History Trog

New member
The finalized text and 63 diagrams of the book are with the PDMHS editor but the photos are still being sorted.

When we surveyed the Masson system 50 years ago, it took 78 days underground because of the extensive area of passages that were later quarried away. Unfortunately, I paid little attention to the old shafts, which provide a unique record of early hard rock mining.

Recently, when looking at a photo of Carding’s Nestus Shaft, I made a major discovery about early shaft sinking techniques.

I then noticed on the 28 Days Later website, a report on the Masson system by “Tunnel Gricer”. This includes an excellent photo taken looking up Black Ox Shaft (wrongly known to spar miners as High Loft) not far north of Carding’s Nestus.
https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/masson-mine-matlock-derbyshire-july-2025.140528/

I attempted to contact Tunnel Gricer to obtain his permission to use his photo but was blocked by the website, which claimed that I am “spam”, rather bafflingly, and there was no response when I referred to it the administrators.

Is there anyone who could put me in touch with Tunnel Gricer? Assistance would be much appreciated.
 
Thank you Berty - sorted.
When we surveyed 50 years ago, we only had carbide lamps and feeble electric torches so could not look up the shafts effectively. The photo of Cardings Nestus Shaft was kindly provided by Prof John Gunn,
 
Off topic, but there is an interesting shot of mine at Frongoch looking up the engine shaft. I used a Sony bridge camera on telephoto zoom with an Imolent DX80 35,000 lumen LED torch. Its not here on the database as yet. I wondered for some time what I was looking at up there, is an offset of the pump rod holding back debris.

eng_shaft_small.jpg
 
The shafts that particularly interest me are those sunk before 1700 through solid rock and at least 70 feet deep. Should have looked more carefully at those in Masson Cavern. I have discovered when the Nestus Pipes were first discovered (within a few years), exactly where, and how they were found. This allows a much more realistic assessment of the mining techniques used and rewrites the whole development of hard rock mining in Derbyshire that followed on from this event. Of course, this is all building on the pioneering work of the late Jim Rieuwerts. At least, there is no more need for speculation about "woodpecker work"!
 
Slightly outside of the area in the scope of your book, but the early shaft I find most interesting is the corkscrewing" raise in Lords and Ladies Mine that John Barnatt thought had been created by firesetting
 
Re photographing up shafts

One has to remember the effect of different focal length lenses, a telephoto or "optical zoom" in Newspeak will bring things closer together so the impression of distance is somewhat distorted. In my shot the heavy iron rods are the top brace of a balance bob and the actual distance to the pitwork holding back the rubbish is considerably more than it appears, in fact it makes the depth of the shaft from collar appear a fraction of what it really is. Bound to distort appearance of other stuff like shot holes, pick marks etc

Just something to be aware of.
 
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