I know I said the last post would be the final nostalgic / retrospective story, but I lied. The overall plan to return to a normal service is still underway and whats been written for future updates does indeed reflect this, just think of this as a one time special to get some different content off my chest.

For as long as I can remember explorers have joked, discussed and cried themselves to sleep over the possibility the Post Office Railway could be explored. Those keen to attempt entry desperately clawed at every scrap of information like a starving hobo snacking on bread crumbs. Just the idea of access, let alone the task of traversing the line seemed fraught with impossible obstacles and doubt.

So our target for the afternoon was Middleton Mine, the only underground Limestone mine in the UK. Middleton is split over three levels and stretches for more than 22 miles under the hills. The mine closed in 2001 and it has been estimated that during its operational time roughly 16 million tonnes of limestone had been removed.

Clapham North Deep Level. Yawn, it was stripped bare and had no character like its southern counterpart. Go look at that instead.

In a way you could call this part three of our adventure into the Parisian necropolis. Sure, its not technically in Paris. Or France, but Belgium is kind of close, isn’t it?

After saying farewell to the brummies we headed to derbyshire to take a look at one of Dweebs recommendations. Draycott mine. As far as I am aware this was originally a train tunnel which had to be closed due to a cave in near the north entrance. A mining firm saw this as an opportunity and purchased the tunnel from the rail network. They then proceeded to sink audits and new faces off the side of the train tunnel and thus a new mine was formed.