Ovenpipe Shaft is positioned centrally within a farmyard adjacent to the old Count House and is entirely obstructed. Nearby are the remnants of a small engine house and a chimney. An arched tunnel behind the new barn, which once housed the balance bob for Watson’s Shaft, is capped. Watson’s Shaft, the deepest in the orefield at 1,690 feet, is blocked shortly below the surface. A recent exploration discovered a level just above this blockage, which connects to both Ovenpipe and New Shafts. At the rear of the area stands a large engine house for the pumping engine and an octagonal chimney. The Shropshire Mines Trust has acquired much of the area for preservation purposes.
On the uphill side of the road, behind a cottage, Lewis’s Shaft has been filled and landscaped as part of a garden. An arched structure behind a pottery, which appears to be an open adit, serves as a potato store. A short open adit on the hillside opposite the pottery features a narrow inclined drop of unknown depth. Additionally, there is a reported filled shaft at the site of the workshop next to the pottery.
New Shaft is located a short distance along the road to Bog on the right-hand side, with trees growing out of its top and an adjacent engine base. This shaft was descended in 1993 to a blockage at 200 feet. The path to this shaft crosses the dam of the mine reservoir.
External Links
Publications (8)
- (1922); BGS - Mineral Resources of GB (c1920s) Vol II - Barytes and Witherite; 136 pages
- (1922); BGS - Mineral Resources of GB (c1920s) Vol XXIII - Lead & Zinc: Pre-Carboniferous Shropshire & North Wales; 111 pages
- (1996); CATMHS - Newsletter 045-January; 36 pages
- Adams, D.R. (1964); PDMHS (Peak District Mines Historical Society) 02-3 May - Survey of the South Shropshire Lead Mining Area Part 2; 11 pages (111-121)
- Brown, Ivor J. (1993); PDMHS (Peak District Mines Historical Society) 12-2 Win - The Buildings and Equipment used at Pennerley Mine, Shropshire, in the late 19th Century, The; 7 pages (50-56)
- Brown, Ivor J. (1995); PDMHS (Peak District Mines Historical Society) 12-5 Sum - Snailbeach Mine and the Disaster of 1895; 6 pages (27-32)
- Brown, Ivor J. (1997); PDMHS (Peak District Mines Historical Society) 13-4 Win - Underground Canals in Shropshire Mines; 7 pages (17-23)
- Liscombe & Co (1880); Mines of Cardiganshire, Montgomereyshire & Shropshire; 52 pages


