The natural drainage of these mines being towards the Shake-mantle pit, a very powerful pumping engine has been put up there, capable of raising 250 gallons of water to the surface at every stroke.
As many as 250 hands are employed in working these valuable iron mines.
The Westbury-brook iron mine, so called from its situation near the head of that stream, is one of the most productive pits on the eastern side of the Forest basin.
It was begun about the year 1837, immediately below “the old men’s workings.” These proved to be remarkably extensive and searching, all the ore having been cleared out to a depth, in some places, of 160 yards. They were also found to contain many ancient mining implements, such as plank-ladders, shovels, helves, &c., all of ash, besides leather shoes and mattock heads, left behind probably when the iron furnaces of the district were suppressed in 1674.
Since 1843 this mine work has been very prosperously conducted by the agents of the Dowlais Iron Company, whither most of its ore is sent to be
mixed and smelted with the ore there, much to the improvement of the iron so made.
Nearly 200 hands are employed at the Westbury-brook mine pit. The excavations run north and south for upwards of a mile and a half, their breadth averaging about 16 yards. They are reached by a shaft 186 yards deep, to the top of which a plunging pump raises 33 gallons of water at each stroke.
For several years past this iron mine has yielded many thousands of tons yearly of the finest red hematite ore. A steam-engine of 36 horse power brings it to the surface.
The Old Sling iron mine, begun in 1838, on the Clearwell Mean, has long been considered one of the principal mine works on the western edge of the Forest. Its chief access is by a shaft that descends 105 yards to where the deepest workings begin. These gradually rise, in accordance with the upward slope of the mine train, until they attain an area of about 20 acres, leaving some 33 acres unwrought above them, to where “the old men’s workings” are reached. Such is the case about 50 yards below the surface, after they had worked over upwards of seven acres of the mine ore. These excavations were found to contain some ancient picks and wooden shovels tipped with iron, an addition not met with elsewhere, but rendered necessary in this instance by the harder nature of the matrix of the mine ore.
This iron mine has yielded for several years past 1,000 tons of red hematite ore per month, and employed nearly 100 hands.