Monday 29 August 2011

A slice of Lyme 12 - Lots and lots of holes



 
Poynton was once a coal mining area with a significant number of active pits. Although the coal mining industry has declined since the interference of a certain 'Iron Lady', the pits around Poynton are marked out in this rather unusual sculpture which shows a vertical pit wheel, representative of those which would have winched the miners down to the bottom of the shaft, above a horizontal drill head.


Each hole on the drill ring marks a mine shaft down into one of the coal pits. The scale is marked at the bottom. In real terms, we estimated the ring to have a diameter of around a mile and a half.



And, every shaft is named.


I hope you've enjoyed reading about our walk as much as I enjoyed doing it. Tomorrow, you'll be pleased to know, will see a change of subject!

6 comments:

  1. What a very interesting sculpture!

    Thanks for your earlier comment. The lakes are somewhere I long to spend time, but they're quite far away and we rarely have the time and never have the money to actually go on holiday there... one day though, one day!

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  2. Yes, I suppose so! I was thinking of it being longer as it took a long time to get to clitheroe going across the Peak and around Manchester, but if we were going to the lakes we could just join the M6 at sandbach and then it would be a quick journey! We haven't had a holiday for a few years as money has been tight! We sold our good tent a couple of years ago as it wasn't quite what we wanted and are looking out for a new one but we do have a small tent as well! Dave's stepmum suggested to us that they tow their caravan their for us to borrow when we want a holiday so I plan to take them up on that, the only problem is that his dad works in a school and they are often away themselves in their van in school hols, which of course is the only time I can go! We will definitely get up there at some point though!

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  3. Yes, that's the sort of thing they were suggesting. In the meantime, I have plenty of places to explore closer to home, including Lyme as it's been on my list for ages and we've almost gone several times then changed our plans. Your posts have tempted me!

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  4. What a fabulous "monument" to the miners who worked here.

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  5. I really love this sculpture and how interesting that it tells a story too.

    cheers, parsnip

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  6. Very interesting post ! We have a coal mine area not so far from Waterloo, unfortunately famous for a terrible disaster where from 274 miners only 12 survived. That was in Marcinelle in 1956.
    I have a post about Wellington in Waterloo !

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