Go to the Main Mendip Cave Registry Search Page

Firs Quarry Shaft I5

Combe Down, Bath.

The location of this shaft is from a plan provided by Cornwall Consultants for a property search at a nearby house. It is also shown on a plan (figure 9.2) in Finished Labour of a Thousand Hands: The Archaeology of the Combe Down Stone Mines, Bath, Somerset published in 2011. It is however, not shown on the 25 inch Ordnance Survey maps of 1873-1888 (South West England). Otherwise, little is known of this shaft.

It was catalogued as Shaft 5114 by the Oxford Archaeologists and identified as a probable well during the underground surveying. It was seen to be capped by two large flat limestone blocks 5m above the quarry passage ceiling. Google Earth suggests that it is now built over by the Combe Down House Surgery.

Alternative Names: Combe Down Quarries, Combe Down Quarry, Firs Quarry, Firs Mine, 5114

Notes: Combe Down Quarry is the collective name for a collection of quarries including Firs Quarry, Byfield Mine, Allotments Quarry and Coxe's Quarry which originally began as separate workings but gradually merged into one giant network covering more than 10 hectares.