Bumpy Ground near Drain

Image: © Ian Dodds Taken: 26 Jan 2022

I often feel sorry for the historians of the future, as they will rarely find anything dating to our era on the ground. It is no doubt the case due to environmental concerns, but it is an odd thing that all the archaeological minutiae of long-gone industries is assiduously documented (down to what are essentially just loose piles of rubble that get logged as 'amorphous spoil heaps'), but demolition processes and subsequent relandscaping works rarely leave a trace these days. The land here is just 100 metres South of the location of the main buildings of a former coal mine, Climpy Colliery No 3 Pit - during its operation there were ponds and spoil heaps just North of here, and the drain which runs by the exposed bit of earthy bank at the left of the picture didn't exist. The ground here doesn't look entirely natural and there are a number of loose stones present. I imagine that this landscape is in some way linked to the mining operations, but was so insignificant compared to what was around at the time that it didn't get noted. Canmore, a Scottish website dedicated to the archaeological minutiae mentioned above, adds further (but welcome and necessary) confusion to the history of here by mentioning in a 1990s entry that there was probably a second later mine on this site. The current paper OS map shows a 'Works' being present at roughly the same spot and a building in the field over the fence on the left. It is obvious that there was something there fairly recently as there is a large patch of grass in amongst the tussocks. This land is off to the left of one of the many entrance roads to the sprawling Black Law Windfarm.

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