Spar Mine (Hendre)

Location
SJ 188 677

Directions
Locate the Royal Oak Pub at Hendre and park nearby. There is a road behind the pub with a track running off to the right immediately. Take that track until you arrive at a small, derelict building and head up into the woods along a path. The shaft is a couple hundred yards up the hill.

Access
Permission is required from Lloyds Quarries

Suggested Equipment
None

Length
½ to 1 mile along all the passages

Flood risk
The bottom adit is habitually flooded with the water rising almost up to the level above on occasions.

Mine Attributes
Feldspar Mine. Numerous levels all laddered.

Description
A reasonable sized mine with (mostly) big, open passages on multiple levels.

Entering the mine by the main ladder takes you into the main system and you immediately find yourself in a big chamber. There is a level below here (connected by a ladder) leading to a backfilled adit, a waterlogged adit and also a hole to another level below.

Continuing along the first level adit you arrive at a small hole upwards where a fireman’s hose assisted scramble takes you to a shelf within a large, exposed hole (to the surface). Here a ladder can be taken down to another level and, again, another ladder to another level below.

In this level the passageway is it’s biggest with a small exit at the end leading to the base of the large hole which houses the shelf from earlier.

As series of three ladders takes you down to a further level with two parallel adits (one impassable due to a hole) which converge in a chamber with a passage running off to the right (only short) and a bridge directly in front with an upward sloping passage behind it which also goes blind.

There is another level below this level which can be accessed where the two parallel adits converge but the level below is always flooded. If the water depth is not to deep it is possible to swim into the adit but, usually, the level is above the ceiling of the adit below.

The mineral content of this mine is extremely rich with feldspar littering the ground and walls almost everywhere you travel.

Unexplored Passages
There are several passages known to be unexplored including a full exploration of the hole (which must be rigged) near to the base of the first set of ladders after entering the mine, the climb upwards in the chamber to the right of the bridge on the pen-ultimate level and other “holes” at the end of some of the adits which require rigging to pass or descend.

Digs
None Known

Links
http://www.gloucester-speleo.org/gallery/mines/mines.html

http://www.mine-explorer.co.uk/mines/Hendre-spar_2429/Hendre-spar.asp

http://www.wirralcavinggroup.org.uk/trips/hendre.html

http://www.aditnow.co.uk/mines/Hendre-Fluorite-Mine-2/

The ladder down in the first chamber




The fireman's hose assisted scramble




The ladder down from the shelf to the level below

The waterlogged adit on the level immediately below entry level










The bottom (flooded) level

few of my favourite's I took at Spar not lonng ago...

is that MODEL caver again ooow suits you sir

More piccies courtesy of MartyMarty

ahh many thanks Ian for popping them up for me i'll learn how to do it one day. And sorry Marc, no! I didnt have permission off the landowner to take these either

really like those shots MartyMarty, never seen it lit like that before

The problem with hendre is that its been hammered by the general photographer on most of the forums i use so i went there intentionally to light it up differently without the use of people for scale (not entirely possible as you can see ive added a few) but the idea seems to have worked. I ended up taking around a 100 pics but always end up with around 6 or 7 i can actually be happy with. The picture of the little wagon was the hardest but the best, the Led Torch i put behind it was a little too bright and looked odd in the first few pics so having played around with the position of it i got a "not bad" pic. is was a little colder than normal plenty of fog when we were breathing so came up with the idea to breath into the beam of the torch whilst on a 8sec exposure and hey presto it worked after around 30 takes. the downside to uploading to forums is the amount of quality a picture looses when its uploaded so if you want to see the better pictures send me your email address and i'll post them to you

M

Marty I like the way you lit the large stope with the three ladders in, it's a good shot that one.

I've still not got a decent set of photos from Hendre yet, despite being in there several times!

Brakeman wrote:

Marty I like the way you lit the large stope with the three ladders in, it's a good shot that one.

I've still not got a decent set of photos from Hendre yet, despite being in there several times!

when your next up we'll go do some more if you like

just a few more of the unseen bottom adit level

This is the bottom level the only way in is through the hole at the top and an ab down or electron ladder in this case. The top light is Ian the second is Mike and the third is Marc and with Adam next to me.


Mike Leahy standing near the top of the level behind him it goes to water with a massive colapse at the end.


Mike at the bottom of the main incline now submerged and full of water. The water is very low in these summer months but ive seen the water to roof level and more in the winter.


Adam and Mike half way down the main adit level note the submersable pnumatic pumps next to Adam there were three of these in total.

Two of the three pumps.


This is the main incline if you follow this it takes you to a steeper incline to surface but at the top its all caved in. Note the timbering to the left side to keep falling spar from the tracks.


Mike at the incline facing upwards and outwards.


Mike Adam and Marc at the top of the main incline the portal now behind them blocked big time. Keep still Marc im a pro you know!

Pretties for Doug


UCET Cavers group photo.

EXCELLENT STUFF DUDE( YOUR PRO YOU ARE )

just a few of the work done. pics taken tonight after someone moaning on another popular web site

and it was snowing

Great Pics (as always)



Ian

Nice pictures, like the fun guy.