Having lived mostly in the chalk areas of southern England, and having
explored several man-made holes in the chalk,I might be able to shed some
light on the "mine" in Reading.
There are four major materials which have been mined from the chalk:
Flint (still extracted today for glass and the repair of listed buildings
where this was the original material)
Chalk either as pigment, filler for paper or for medicinal use.
(in these cases, the unweathered material is preferred as it is not
discoloured.)
Chalk-Marl as a building material.
The space resulting from the removal of material :)
Certainly some famous chalk (marl) mines exist at Beer (Devon) and one
exists near High Wycombe (known as the Hell Fire Caves, used by the
infamous club of that name).
Quite frequently, tunnels were cut through the chalk as discrete
thoroughfares between locations - seemingly usually for the purposes of tax
evasion! The area around the medway towns is riddled with these, some of
which were of military origin. Reading has yielded several tunnels to date,
often still displaying the tool-marks on the walls and roof. (sorry, local
papers did report them, but I can't give further details.)
It is a matter of conjecture whether these tunnels are solution hollows
which have been enlarged or are entirely man-made. I would be curious to
know, myself.
I suggest looking at the Medway Towns (Chatham, Gillingham, Rochester,
Rainham, Stroud) newspapers, various years, for tunnel collapses (often
school playgrounds disappearing have been reported). The Reading papers may
be informative, also.
Paul Ellison
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From: James Fussell <[log in to unmask]>
To: mining history forum <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: mine collapses
Date: 01 February 2000 21:30
On 28.01.00 Tony Oldham posted 'Min-Hist Biblio' which included refs to a
couple of news items on mine collapses. Does anyone (including you, Tony!)
have any further information on these - particularly the second one - a
chalk mine in Reading? Was it a mine rather than solution cavities? If it
was, what were 'they' mining chalk for?
extract from original message:
>>> Our Terror as the garden fell into a 330 ft deep hole by Lucie Morris.
Daily Mail January 7, 2000 p 11 photo. Abandoned mineshaft opens up on the
night of a family party. Local mining expert Tony Bennet said the shaft
was called the Elvan shaft and is part of the Wheal Sparnon mine which
closed in the 1870’s. Sixteen homes in Reading remained evacuated last
night after several terrace houses built on top of a chalk mine collapse
into a hole. <<<
James Fussell
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