Orange Leete Level

Location
SJ 287(74) 502(44)

Directions
From Coed Poeth, drive down to the Nant Mill visitor centre and park on their car park. Take the footpath upstream on the RIGHT hand bank on the stream/river.
You will shortly come to a bridge crossing the river. The Orange Leete entrance is here on the right hand side of the river (you have been walking alongside the leete up till that point)

Access
Open & Unknown

Suggested Equipment
Unknown

Length
Unknown

Flood risk
It is likely to flood to ceiling (see description below)

Mine Attributes
Presumably lead but with so much ochre, possibly copper and other minerals too.

Description
This is apparently named “Orange Leete Level” by the Nant Mill visitor centre which is a stones throw away and is probably unimaginatively so named after the colour of the sediment in the waterflow as it is orange (ochre).

The entrance height is no more than 3 feet and the depth of the water was 1 foot (on the 26th Sept 2009 when I was there).

Looking inside, it did not appear to get any roomier although it could be that the water becomes deeper whilst the ceiling height remains the same.

Certainly, initially, you would have to crawl in on hands and knees and there is not much head space for air. I would expect this headspace to VANISH in wetter conditions.

I have no clue of it’s length or to where it goes expect that it is in close proximity to the mines of minera.

Unexplored Passages
All of it is unexplored.

Digs
Unknown

Links
None Known

Ian, this is Minera Deep Day Level. Originally this drained a whole raft of mines in Minera and it was possible to drop down Taylor's shaft and wend your way along the levels and exit through Deep Day level when the mines were operating at the turn of the century. There is a partial collapse an unknown distance in from the adit and this has resulted in water backing up within the mine and escaping elsewhere. Certainly there is a note on the web that NWCC were thinking of trying to dig the blockage to reduce the amount of heavy metal pollution entering the river.

I'm game for a trip down it in dry weather (preferably warm & sunny as well!)

Dave