Go to the Main Mendip Cave Registry Search Page

Firs Field - Memorial Shaft

Combe Down, Bath.

This is one of the four shafts in the present day Firs Field. It was examined by the Oxford Archaelogy team in 2008 who noted their location overlying an underground roadway. It is understood that the shaft was open until approximately the the mid twentieth century, when it was infilled with ash and general rubbish.

The shaft is now lost although its position is marked by a mature horse chestnut tree.

Alternative Names: Combe Down Quarries, Combe Down Quarry, Firs Quarry, Firs Mine, Firs Quarry Shaft 4031, G2, Firs Quarry Lightshaft, Chestnut Shaft

Notes: It is unknown when the shaft was sunk although a collection of clay pipes, bottle glass and slip-ware suggest that underground quarrying probably began here around 1700.

The shaft was marked as an air shaft on large scale Victorian Ordnance Surve maps but given its 5m to 6m diameter, it is more likely to have been a 'Light Shaft' or a 'Light Hole' providing light and ventilation to the quarry below.

It is also likely that the shaft would have been used been used for winding stone to the surface in the mid 18th Century. The Oxford Archaeology Unit also refered to this shaft both as "Memorial Shaft" and as "Chestnut Shaft."