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MCRA-SH-11 MCRA-SH-12 Rabbit Hole Scum Hole Rock Girt Pit Coffee Pot Sandford Gulf SSSS-22-B Fern Mine Sandford Bone Fissure SSSS-22-F Classic Shaft Summit Plantation Mine SMCC-10 MCRA-SH-4 Groof House Shafts Sandford Rake ACG-07 SMCC-12 Bat Hole MCRA-SH-3 MCRA-SH-10 MCRA-SH-2 MCRA-SH-8 SMCC-8 MCRA-SH-7 SMCC-7 Triple Hole Elephant Cave Mangle Hole SMCC-14 ACG-05 Shaft 120 Saville Row Shaft No.1 Whispering Gallery Sandford Levvy Saville Row Shaft No.3 SMCC-4 Holly Shafts MCRA-SH-1 SMCC-15 SSSS-32-N Pseudo Udders Hole SMCC-17 Robert's Paradise Skeleton Rift SMCC-18 MCRA-SH-6 MCRA-SH-5 SSSS-22-O King Mine SSSS-22-N ACG-27 SMCC-19 South Rift ACG-26 Sandford Quarry Mine Sandford Hill Mine No.4 SSSS-43-G Gran's Discovery Sandford Hill Mine No.3 High Mine Ellis' Wonder Deep Groove Mine SSSS-22-K Sandford Rifts East Sandford Hill Mine No.2 Test Mine Udders Hole SSSS-52-D MCRA-SH-13 MCRA-SH-14 Auger's Mines Stanton's Shaft Spar Shaft
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Pearl Mine, Sandford Hill.
NGR: | ST 4283 5917 |
WGS84: | 51.32874, -2.82192 |
Length: | 215 m |
Depth: | 31 m |
Altitude: | 109 m |
Tags: | Mine |
Registry: | westmendip |
A rectangular entrance shaft, 0.6m by 3m, drops nearly vertically down the bedding to a mined cross gallery at 15m and another at the bottom at a depth of 23m. The cross galleries undulate but follow the strike on either side of the shaft. One contains fine gours and nests of cave pearls, described by W. I. Stanton as being being 'the size of pigeon's eggs'.
Alternate Names: Sandford Pearl Mine, Sandford Hill Mine No.1, MNRC-7, SMCC-9 and SSSS-32-A
Notes: Bones were present in this cave - as indicated in ACG Log Book No.2, p.42 (1968), which states that members visited the mine to retrieve some skulls from the entrance shaft only to find that someone had beaten them to it. This and other evidence, albeit tenuous, has led some commentators to suggest that Pearl Mine, the lost Elephant Cave and Sandford Bone Fissure, may all be one and the same.The skulls mentioned were sheep dumped in the mine - The
WAACS logbook on MCRA reports the bottom of the shaft being "piled with
rotting animals (probably sheep)" in July 1962.
Surveys:
Pearl Mine, Sandford, Askins, M.R., 1950
Pearl Mine, Jenkins, D., 1959
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This entry was last updated: 2024-03-02 14:13:41
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