Middleton Mine (Christmas Edition) - Derbyshire
In 2024, Middleton Mine served as the filming location for major upcoming movies, including the new Mission Impossible and Marvel's Fantastic Four. For a brief period in December, the site became accessible after someone removed a load of breeze blocks. We decided there was no better place to celebrate Christmas than within its vast chambers.
Meeting at our usual spot, we donned our best festive outfits and made our way inside. Signs of the mine's new purpose were evident even from the outside, with newly installed palisade fencing and barbed wire scattered around. They had even placed large concrete blocks in front of a convenient parking area down the road. Getting in posed no issues, but we were aware, thanks to recent visitors, that the main entrance’s PIRs (passive infrared sensors) were fully operational, so we made a mental note to steer clear of them.
It was a friend’s first time exploring the mine, so we made sure to visit the usual highlights: the crusher pit, three adits, conveyors, and, of course, the burned-out car. One notable feature that used to stand out—a large blue tarpaulin sheet—has since been removed and replaced with new ones throughout the site. These sheets are used to direct airflow.
We spent the night navigating the maze-like chambers, soaking in the atmosphere, and investigating potential leads for old lead workings.
History
“Middleton Mine is located 4 miles south-west of the small town of Matlock. The mine works the Hopton-Wood Limestone which occurs underneath Middleton Moor. Middleton Moor is on the southern margin of an area of the Peak District known as the The White Peak, a block of carboniferous limestone stretching 50 kilometers north to south and 20 kilometers west to east. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when Hopton-wood limestone was first extracted on the site now occupied by Middleton Mine. Certainly by the 1900's there was a well established dimension stone operation at the site. It was a surface operation and was cut where the Hopton-wood outcrops on the eastern flank of Middleton Moor in the middle of the village of Middleton-by-Wirksworth. Dimension stone operations continued until the 1950's when due to the rapid development of concrete technology the demand for natural stone products fell. Derbyshire Stone, the then operators and owners of the site, had pre-empted this fall in demand by developing a small processing plant to crush the limestone to supply the steel and sugar industry. Towards the end of the decade the situation with the surface operations reached a point where it became increasingly uneconomic to keep stripping the overburden (which was increasing in depth as a quarry cut into the moor) to gain access to the high purity Hopton-wood beds. The Company was reluctant to lose the customer base it had built up with the processed products, so the decision to commence underground operations was taken. The company at that time were operating a lead mine in Matlock and moved two of the personnel to Middleton. Work on a drift access was started on February the 4th 1959 and to date approximately 16 million tonnes of high grade limestone have been extracted for the underground workings. At present Middleton Mine consists of 35 kilometers of workings covering an area of 1400 meters west to east and 800 m north to south. Middleton Mine is divided into five main production areas by normal faults”.
