Confession, old industry and housing

23 August 2013

It's said that confession is good for the soul.  Well, I confess to wasting time on YouTube.  Last time I look ed at it I got caught up in the amount of sink-holes that seem to be opening up all over the place.  It seems that nowhere is safe from sink-holes, even here in the UK.  I've seen news reports of houses disappearing into one when the roofing collapses in old abandoned coal mines.  But It's different when it starts happening close to home.  Last week a sink-hole happened on Croft Road in Stockingford; there's another one reported in the News over in Woolly-back country in Hinckley.  Maybe the hollow earth theory is right and the whole lot of is going to fall into a giant sink-hole eh?  I won't be holding my breath though!

Dorktown and the surrounding area was once a mining area.  I've no idea how many mines there used to be here.  I can remember mines at Arley, Bedworth, Galley Common, Birch Coppice, Badsley and one more I think was called Griff followed by a number.  Bedworth had even more mines and one of the roads there is called Coal Pit Fields Road. 

Quarrying was another large industry in the area.  There's granite ridge that seems to follow the A5 about a mile away, that has been heavily quarried.  There's two large holes off Tuttle Hill.  At the top there's a small hole as you turn right on to Mancetter Road and further along there are at least two more, one on each side the road.  Granite wasn't the only item dug out; a large amount of clay was also dung out to feed the Stanley's brick yards.  They too have left large holes in the area, but a number of them have been filled in.   

There's two in Whittleford, one is now a nature reserve and another has had houses built on it.  So has the one off Croft Road, quite close to where the sink-hole has appeared.  I remember taking rubbish to both these sites as part of the land fill that was on-going then.  Currently Judkins off Tuttle Hill is current land fill site but it is fast filling up.  I wonder where the next one will be?

But here's the things folks; would you knowingly buy a house built on a former land fill site?  I know I wouldn't!  I wouldn't want the fear of leaking gas from rotting foods escaping and possible sinking caused by settlement of the rubbish slowly rots and degrades. 

Going back to my start today, one of the sink holes in the southern USA is growing quite large now.  The site is a salt mine, so is it any wonder that it has collapsed in and is causing a lot of fear and problems.  It makes me wonder just how much of land surface is safe after years, maybe centuries of mining.  As if natural crust movements were not bad enough, we've all helped to remove some of the underpinning rocks as well.  Clever ain't us!!!

Geology was and still is of interest to me.  I began doing an OU course on the subject but gave up for family reasons.  But to be honest, I was struggling with the maths involved.  I just can't 'see' maths.  Anyway, at the time I used to run around with a camera snapping various rock exposures as I found them.  Here's one of them ... 

Part of Judkins, off Tuttle Hill.  

This site has actually been designated as an SSSI so that's why it hasn't been totally filled by land fill.  Here's another ... 

a trace fossil I found at Aysgarth Falls.  The phone is to give an idea of scale.

And from the Sage ...

He didn't like the casserole
And he didn't like my cake,
He said my biscuits were too hard
Not like his mother used to make.
I didn't perk the coffee right
He didn't like the stew,
I didn't mend his socks
The way his mother used to do.
I pondered for an answer
I was looking for a clue.
Then I turned around and
smacked him one

Like his mother used to do.