Nenthead

11 May 2025

By Tom C In Day Trips

Nenthead – Caplecleugh

Ami, Chris G, Scott, Tom

We assembled at Nenthead after the usual long drive and met up with Chris, a friend of Maz’s doing his second club trip, but being an already seasoned Northern Pennines mine explorer he’d been keen to get into Nenthead.

After reading that Caplecleugh had run in earlier in the year, my hopes of someday doing the Greater Nenthead Traverse had been dashed, and instead we’d planned to do Smallcleugh to Nentsberry Haggs, which was most of the traverse minus the first few hours.

But chatting to some Nent experts who were also getting changed, we learnt that the first section m

ight actually have been reopened. We hastily rescheduled, especially at the thought of ditching the long rope, and made the 30 metre commute to the adit. It was easy going in sturdy open passage for a while, until the roof began to look increasingly sketchy as we hit the shale drives. As the roof lowered and the route started disappearing under damp low arches, we began to pray softly to the shale gods to wait just an hour longer as we wriggled delicately beneath hanging slabs a metre wide.

After around half an hour of dodging hanging death, things became more stable again and we were stomping up lovely arched passage. We came upon a fresh collapse, and while there was plenty of space to clamber over it, it’d blocked the stream which had pooled behind it to within an inch of the ceiling. After a bit of debate, somebody* decided to pull the plug on the blockage. A dribble of water began flowing over the top. Then a stream. And as the stream increased, it washed more and more of the blockage out, until we had to make a retreat from the torrent we’d created. Moving back into more open passage, and locating a rise upwards that we’d be able to scrat up if needed, we perched on a little mud bank out of the water and waited for things to drain.

After 10 minutes or so the flow was noticeably lower and we headed back up to see…open passage! Still chest deep or so, but we were through and up to the toilet box junction in a few minutes. There was some confusion about the route on from here, having being given the directions of left then right. We headed along a long damp route to the left at the toilet box, passing under numerous falls, chutes and ladders until eventually things got cold and deep. We hit a right hand junction but eventually decided to get out of the water, and headed up a ladder equipped with a modern rope.

This took us up about 25m into some fantastic flats, full of rails, artifacts, gunpowder, and some sketchy in-situ stuff. A pitch headed off up a shaft but we weren’t fancying it without further research. We headed back down to the horse level and had more of a poke around various side passages. Happy that we’d had a good explore, knew a lot more about this end of the traverse and now keen to get the return through the shaley stuff behind us, we headed back out. With a minor roof collapse onto Scott’s back, we made it back out unscathed for yet another session of ‘why did we waste another day of scorching weather on this hobby?’.

2 April 2023

By Tom C In Day Trips

Tom Calpin, Scott Nixon, Ray McGarry

Scott and I had fancied figuring out the Smallcleugh to Rampgill through-trip via Proud’s Sump for a while, and with Ray we decided to give it a try.

We headed up to Nenthead for a leisurely 11am start after coffees and muffins at the Alston services, and wandered up to Smallcleugh. Dropping the bags at Proud’s Sump we headed round the near flats for a quick round-trip. Before long we were back at the sump and kitting up for the descent on the in-situ ropes (which were in good nick).

At the bottom of the first drop were 2 routes on – Scott wasn’t liking the look of a traverse over a pit with the rope secured to rusting rails, and thankfully the route on was the other way, with a short crawl dropping to the second pitch. The in-situ rope for this was almost new and had a deviation in which left no rope rub. This pitch dropped eerily into a flat, with the shaft carrying on down but at this point we swung off into the flat. We then spent a good hour wandering round Proud’s Flats, there’s plenty of stuff to see in here.

After we were done we headed down the continuing aluminium ladder and into the running water of the Rampgill drainage level. From here on out it’s easy, following the water past plenty of bright colours and rotting ore chutes, until we hit a rope climb up that we recognised from a previous visit. Onwards for 20 minutes and we were at Whisky Bottle Junction. After a final stop to peer over the edge of the Brewery Shaft, we headed out into warm sunshine right next to the car.

Photos by Ray

2 June 2017

By Tom C In Day Trips

Smallcleugh Mine

We all made the long drive in a timely fashion and by 11.30am, we were heading up through the old mine buildings towards the Smallcleugh mine entrance leaving Emma, who had sustained a double ankle injury in a fight with the bottom stair of a spiral staircase, to her own devices in the car park. On the way, Andy managed to persuade some unsuspecting visitors to join one of the mine society’s Open Day trips and we took the opportunity to introduce ourselves to the volunteers from the Mine Conservation Society and to bag our cake choices for our return. We were also advised to avoid Luke Hall’s sump as the metalwork had collapsed and the walls were in danger of joining the metalwork.

Smallcleugh horse level was followed through to Smallcleugh Flats. (I thought we were Wheel Flats & promptly turned everyone westward along a passage that led directly to Luke Hall’s Sump!) Phil continued along the main passage and discovered a sign hailing entry to Wheel Flats and so we continued without further ado to the infamous Ballroom Flats. The main mineral in evidence was galena—as you would suspect in a lead mine. The arched passages, handcrafted by mine workers, were quite spectacular and large enough to only require limited stooping (except in areas of collapse), and the water was rarely over ankle deep—so a comfortable start to our journey.

After Ballroom Flats and a Darren photo shoot, the size of passage decreased to a belly wriggle where crawling in the roofs of arched passages was necessitated due to infill. Once more we encountered Luke Hall’s sump and thereafter we peered expectantly into each sump looking for the ‘only rigged sump on that level’. A 17m descent down a tube brought you out on the edge of Proud’s Flats where a slight swing was needed to reach secure ground. We all investigated the Flats and the 3 obvious passages, discovering wheels, shovels, an almost entire carriage and an ammunitions box.

A ladder had been installed the previous week to replace the final rope pitch and henceforth the water was followed over a good kilometre of passage in Rampgill mine to exit in the car park. The formations and mineralisation on this long section of passage were magnificent and put the Painters Palette to shame. (The collection of bottles at Whiskey Bottle Junction was something to be admired as well). The final wow factor was the Brewery Shaft, just over 100m deep.

A trip taking around 3h20 was ended splendidly with homemade cake and a cup of tea for the whole team (including Emma) with the Mine Society. Andy found a contact who was willing to open the Brewery Shaft for a future KCC trip and, lured by cake, we started to plan a 2 day excursion to coincide with a future Open Day….the potential agenda comprising a longer through trip on the Saturday and a descent of the 105m pitch, ascent to Rampgill and exit via Smallcleugh on the Sunday. Unfortunately, it does seem that bunkhouse accommodation at the mines is not available on the Open Day weekends so we will have to rethink potential dates. If interested in this possible excursion, please get in touch.

It would seem useful to remind club members that mine artefacts (as with natural formations in caves) should be treated with respect. They definitely cannot be replaced once damaged/destroyed and we are very fortunate to be able to go underground to see implements in positions where they were once used.

Tag: Nenthead