tarboat's photos with the keyword: ochre

The ochre coloured water pouring into the River Goyt indicates the tail of the sough draining coal workings on the eastern side of Whaley Bridge. The mines have been abandoned for over 100 years but the water continues to run from them.

The Goldsitch Moss coalfield in Quarnford is drained by a sough which empties into a small stream that runs into the Flash Brook above Manor Farm. Even today the waters are coloured bright orange by the ochre contained in the outflow. At one time the ochre was seen as a source of profit and was colllected in this series of settling tanks alongside the Flash Brook. The dried material would be sold for use in paints, dyeing etc.

The Goldsitch Moss coalfield in Quarnford is drained by a sough which empties into a small stream that runs into the Flash Brook above Manor Farm. Even today the waters are coloured bright orange by the ochre contained in the outflow. At one time the ochre was seen as a source of profit and was colllected in this series of settling tanks alongside the Flash Brook. The dried material would be sold for use in paints, dyeing etc.

It draws your eye to the brick-lined tunnel from which the ochrey water is running. Norbury Colliery pumping adit outlet is discharging minewater that has risen up the shaft of the pumping pit from a depth of around 900ft. The colliery closed in 1892.

Entrance to an extensive colliery working that was developed along this particular drift in the early 1940s. More ochrey fun for the adventurous.

Colliery soughs are well worth seeking out and this example probably dates from the early nineteenth century. Originally used as a drainage and tramming level with a tramroad to take the coal down to a yard by the nearby road. It served to drain, amongst others, Thornsett Hey Colliery and the splendidly named Cave Abdullam Pit, and the abandonment plans suggest that mining ceased here in 1886. The trademark ochreous silt that usually marks old coal workings is present in large quantities here along this stone arched section which comprises the first 167 yards of the 649 yard tunnel. Plenty of water still issues from the sough.