Post Prandial Stroll
We've ended up with the 1st week of this year's summer holiday in the Durham Dales at Middleton-in-Teesdale pretty much by chance. Covid19 & lockdown made chaos of any other plans - just the same as for everyone else.
It's turned out totally brilliant! A very peaceful village in the terrific, wild landscape of the Northern Pennines: sweeping upland moors, great rivers and watercourses. Strange placenames & geographical features abound.
Imagine my excitement when even the most cursory research before our trip revealed about 10 disused mines within the immediate vicinity of the village. After dinner one evening, armed with the vaguest knowledge of where one was, I wandered off into the twilight to go take a look. Twenty minutes on foot from the house I stumbled upon this adit pretty much by chance. It doesn't seem to be any of the ones mentioned on the net and is not marked on the old maps. A small stream flows out the entrance and the first 50m are bricklined. After that the adit is tunnelled through the rock with great swathes of white crystals growing across the walls and small, white stalactites ('ceiling straws') sprouting from the roof. I abandoned progress about 100m in simply not in the mood for further adventure but the tunnel continued. An adventure for another day...
The image is acheived by an in-camera double-exposure: one exposure to light paint the foreground tunnel and the 2nd exposure to let me pop further into the tunnel and light paint that.
Post Prandial Stroll
We've ended up with the 1st week of this year's summer holiday in the Durham Dales at Middleton-in-Teesdale pretty much by chance. Covid19 & lockdown made chaos of any other plans - just the same as for everyone else.
It's turned out totally brilliant! A very peaceful village in the terrific, wild landscape of the Northern Pennines: sweeping upland moors, great rivers and watercourses. Strange placenames & geographical features abound.
Imagine my excitement when even the most cursory research before our trip revealed about 10 disused mines within the immediate vicinity of the village. After dinner one evening, armed with the vaguest knowledge of where one was, I wandered off into the twilight to go take a look. Twenty minutes on foot from the house I stumbled upon this adit pretty much by chance. It doesn't seem to be any of the ones mentioned on the net and is not marked on the old maps. A small stream flows out the entrance and the first 50m are bricklined. After that the adit is tunnelled through the rock with great swathes of white crystals growing across the walls and small, white stalactites ('ceiling straws') sprouting from the roof. I abandoned progress about 100m in simply not in the mood for further adventure but the tunnel continued. An adventure for another day...
The image is acheived by an in-camera double-exposure: one exposure to light paint the foreground tunnel and the 2nd exposure to let me pop further into the tunnel and light paint that.