Searches User Guide: Mining features
Mine entries
Mine entries indicate the entrance into a mine working, for which there are two types: shafts and adit portals. Generally shafts are near vertical and adit portals are entries into near horizontal tunnels.
Data source: BGS, Mining Record Office, Ordnance Survey, Lidar, aerial photography and various collections and sources.
Secondary: Stantec and Coal Authority data
Data update schedule: Variable
Mineralised veins
A steeply dipping vein is a distinct sheetlike body of crystallised minerals within a rock. There is a possibility that these veins have mining features along their course both at surface and depth.
Data source: BGS, Mining Record Office, Ordnance Survey, Lidar, aerial photography and various collections and sources.
Secondary: Stantec and Coal Authority data
Data update schedule: Variable
Surface workings and features
Mineral deposits removed from the surface or where the surface has subsided into subterranean workings. Examples of surface workings may include things such as quarrying for stone, linear surface workings for metallic ores and opencast workings exploiting beds of geological deposits found in viable quantities near to the surface.
These minerals, due to their proximity to the surface, are sometimes of earlier periods, however quarrying is still very much an active industry today.
Data source: BGS, Mining Record Office, Ordnance Survey, Lidar, aerial photography and various collections and sources.
Secondary: Stantec and Coal Authority data
Data update schedule: Variable
Underground mine workings
Underground mine workings, e.g. adits, soughs and seam workings on a mineralised vein or seam. They can present a potential settlement or subsidence risk.
Data source: BGS, Mining Record Office, Ordnance Survey, Lidar, aerial photography and various collections and sources.
Secondary: Stantec and Coal Authority data
Data update schedule: Variable
Reported subsidence
Reported subsidence is where evidence shows a settlement or subsidence event having taken place. This can be from our own physical site investigations, historical geological mapping and our wider comprehensive suite of historical datasets. Sometimes it may include more current events shown in the local media.
The nature of these events, including whether it is mining related, is not always known. These features may relate to things such as naturally occurring dissolution hollows, where soluble bedrock has eroded beneath the surface creating a void at depth, migrating to surface over time. However they may also relate to historical mining activity, examples may include medieval chalk mining or early lead mining.
Data source: BGS, Mining Record Office, Ordnance Survey, Lidar, aerial photography and various collections and sources.
Secondary: Stantec and Coal Authority data
Data update schedule: Variable
Mine waste tips
A mine waste tip is a pile built of accumulated spoil or waste material removed during mining. Depending on whether the waste tip has been fully or partially removed, or the exact constituents and depth there may be a potential settlement or subsidence risk.
Data source: BGS, Mining Record Office, Ordnance Survey, Lidar, aerial photography and various collections and sources.
Secondary: Stantec and Coal Authority data
Data update schedule: Variable
Secured features
Mining features such as shafts and adits, made ‘safe’ by securing. Generally by means of concrete capping or concrete infill/grouting.
Data source: BGS, Mining Record Office, Ordnance Survey, Lidar, aerial photography and various collections and sources.
Secondary: Stantec and Coal Authority data
Data update schedule: Variable
Licence boundaries
A historic lease boundary, sometimes referred to as a sett, is an area of ground where permission to mine has been granted. These can be small parcels of land right up to leases that cover entire parishes. As these areas have been formally approved for the purposes of mining, there is a higher possibility of recorded and unrecorded mine workings being present.
Data source: BGS, Mining Record Office, Ordnance Survey, Lidar, aerial photography and various collections and sources.
Secondary: Stantec and Coal Authority data
Data update schedule: Variable
Researched mining
Researched mining refers to data that is identified from alternative or archival sources, including: BGS Geological paper maps, Lidar data, aerial photographs (from World War II onwards), archaeological data services, websites, Tithe maps, and various text/plans from collected books and reports. Some of this data is approximate and Groundsure has interpreted the resultant risk area and, where possible, specific areas of risk have been captured.
Data update schedule: Variable
Mining Record Office plans
The Mining Records Office houses a collection of coal and other mining abandonment plans, covering both opencast and deep mining operations, which depict areas of extraction and the point of entry into the same. This dataset is representative of Mining Record Office plan extents held by Groundsure and should be considered approximate. Where possible, plans have been located and any specific areas of risk they depict have been captured.
Following an act being passed in Parliament during the 1800s it became a legal requirement to formally document the extent of your mine following its abandonment.
This would eventually include things like, extent of underground workings, orientation of workings to that of the surface, mine entries (shafts, adits etc) and in some cases depths of workings and the dates each section was worked.
Data update schedule: Variable
BGS mine plans
This dataset is representative of BGS mine plan extents held by Groundsure and should be considered approximate.
Where possible, plans have been located and any specific areas of risk depicted have been captured. BGS mine plans are underground mining records, drawing together a range of mine plans from a variety of sources including the Health and Safety Executive mine abandonment plans, published mine plans and plans of mine workings. This is not a comprehensive catalogue, but represents the information currently available in this database for non-coal mine plans.
Data update schedule: Variable