Sad reminder from 70 years ago.

JimB said:

On the Monday morning as we were re-starting the course, one of the guys was showing his photos and commented that the bridge was older than most of America.
The bridge was opened in 1864.
.

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I recall a couple of incidences where an American was visiting one of the oldest pubs in England going back to the time of Cinque Ports, existing around 1657, the visitor commented on the appearance and the landlord said yeah but it has been renovated since.
Sometime in the 18th century!.

The other was when I was in my training years wiring some old Alms houses which dated from the English civil war in Cromwell's time.
The roof beams and rafters were all solid oak and they had been numbered for installation, someone had chiselled out the number of each in them in Roman numerals.
After the industrial revolution, the oak forests of England were decimated for fuel for smelters & furnaces.
Max.

tcmtech said:

Mostly what I have to look at is overgrown spoil piles and a good sized side of a hill that's been dug out in various places and old trail ruts that run in odd locations for proof that anything was ever here.

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Well I live in an old mining village, but the pits closed before I moved here (in 1981) and pretty well all traces of the pits has been erased. In fact I went to the local reference library and looked up old maps to see where they were

Here's a website that shows part of the same map. All trace of the colliery has gone, most of it is now a plantation (load of trees!), and the railway lines have gone (as has the station), but much of the track is now a walk, The Five Pits Trail.

https://www.oldminer.co.uk/pilsley.html

There was an exhibition the other year, down in Clay Cross (another mining town nearby), and I was amazed by the pictures - where I drive back home there were huge slag heaps facing the road (different pit to the one above), and all trace of the pit and the slag heaps have vanished.

Nigel Goodwin said:

Well I live in an old mining village, but the pits closed before I moved here (in 1981) and pretty well all traces of the pits has been erased. In fact I went to the local reference library and looked up old maps to see where they were

Here's a website that shows part of the same map. All trace of the colliery has gone, most of it is now a plantation (load of trees!), and the railway lines have gone (as has the station), but much of the track is now a walk, The Five Pits Trail.

https://www.oldminer.co.uk/pilsley.html

There was an exhibition the other year, down in Clay Cross (another mining town nearby), and I was amazed by the pictures - where I drive back home there were huge slag heaps facing the road (different pit to the one above), and all trace of the pit and the slag heaps have vanished.

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Yours are way better documented than mine. The only documentation I know of is a local amature historian references to it in a book they wrote about our township and general area a number of years ago. "About 1 or so miles in (up valley ABC I live in) where it splits in two." Or something to that rough effect is about all the documentation that I know of.

Size wise it takes up maybe 4 - 5 acres at best. Pretty small now but back in the day it was considered one of the bigger mines in the area, apparently. Given what I have found while hiking around the family and neighbors land over the years coal mines were all over the place. Some tiny hillside shaft mines others larger open pit hillside excavations.

Lately what has been peaking my interests the last few years is the old homesteaders and native American seasonal campsites in the area now that I have some idea of what to look for. I know of several of both on our land and the adjacent neighbors land plus may have discovered the remains of a small sod house and maybe a dugout house two summers ago on some land a neighbor let us cut for hay that year.

tcmtech said:

Lately what has been peaking my interests the last few years is the old homesteaders and native American seasonal campsites in the area now that I have some idea of what to look for. I know of several of both on our land and the adjacent neighbors land plus may have discovered the remains of a small sod house and maybe a dugout house two summers ago on some land a neighbor let us cut for hay that year.

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Well I've been to York today, a place VERY worth visiting if you're ever in the UK.

Today was 'Roman Day', and there was lot's going on, even though it was a bit wet. Anyway, we were talking to a young guy (presumably a University Student?) in one of the museums, and he'd got a number of genuine Roman artefacts you could hold and touch, among them was a huge nail (the sort of thing you might nail some one to a cross with - although he informed me that there was only ever ONE such incident recorded). Anyway, nice big nail, looked brand new - you could have gone out and nailed tree trunks together with it So this nail, almost 2000 years old, had survived intact - so I asked him how?.

Apparently when the Romans abandoned a fort they burnt them to the ground (an obvious safety precaution), as early forts were wooden - and weren't normally replaced by stone ones until 4 or 5 wooden ones had been built and worn out. So this nail came from a burnt down fort, and survived because it was in the ground and had no oxygen to rust away. So I asked it was 'a one of' then, and particularly rare?, to be told - no, they found 750,000 of them at that one site!!!!

Nigel Goodwin said:

Well I've been to York today, a place VERY worth visiting if you're ever in the UK.

Today was 'Roman Day',

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You mean Eboracum?
Just off of Ermine st!
Max.

Nigel Goodwin said:

Well I've been to York today, a place VERY worth visiting if you're ever in the UK.

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Someday! As I get older doing a world trip every few years to see this sort of stuff is becoming more appealing.

When I was married I went to Turkey for a month and loved seeing the ancient ruins they have everywhere there.

(One of the few things I really miss about being married.)

Interesting topic. Australia being such a young country doesn't have ancient ruins to see ... but some of our history is still amazing.

A group of friends and I just spent the weekend travelling to Farina in the north of South Australia ... 650km to get there ... bought a pasty in the bakery ... spent a few hours looking around ... and then turn around to drive 650km back home again.

It was one of those silly things that someone suggested to do ... and somehow grew legs and happened.

Farina was settled in 1878 as a rail head and for farming ... but the area was far too harsh for agriculture and slowly died ... finally being abandoned in the 1960's.

There are probably a lot of these types of places in Australia ... but somehow people have got behind a move to preserve this old town ... and it centres around an underground bakery which they operate for a couple months of the year to raise funds to continue the work.

They've got that many volunteers that come from all over Australia, that they roster them and limit them to 2 weeks of work ... so that others can get a chance to help.

Seems the four wheel drive and outback caravan people can't get enough of the place.

One thing that struck me on the trip was the amount of dead kangaroos and emus on the road ... I kid you not, I would have seen over a thousand dead kangaroos on the weekend (in various stages of decay!!) ... absolute carnage.

https://www.farinarestoration.com/

There's a heap of photos here that give you some idea of what it looks like ... https://desertedplaces.blogspot.com...a-in-south.html?_sm_au_=iVVkFZSDkRRkn1Zs#more