Ok bernie, sorry about that, I am not particularly familiar with the woods, it was far more overgrown when I was young and so the minor paths were much more clearly defined.
When you find the pit you will know it, it must be about 80ft in diameter and about 20 ft deep, the Apex is on the edge towards Mount Road.
On the map above I only guessed the pit was the big clearing, it may be the other clearing south of that, or the less defined clearing roughly between the two. I was walking around in circles at the time looking at something biological, which I won't mention for fear of being awarded the umbiquitous "triple anorak" (that should trigger MissG and PJ - before you start ), and so I am not too aware of the precise location, other than it is west of the ridge that runs along parallel to mount road.
I will take sat nav next time, was doing that the other day and got some really strange looks, walker with sat nav?
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
I took sat nav and couldn't get a signal at all. Plenty of Jews Ears mushrooms on all the Elderberry trees so tea is half foraged-always a good sign in my book! Weekend is next time I might get the chance to look.
Right, went for a brisk walk earlier, place looks nothing like I remember even though it was only a couple of weeks ago. Looks like someone has been doing some clearance, also the undergrowth seems less. Forgot to take satnav again but got a foolproof way of finding it. It doesn't look so convincing now there is less undergrowth, the ground is much more of an angle than I thought - it did look flatish. Right lets get walking .... if you go along the tram track to near the end you find these bits of rail ...
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
If you're standing at the preserved rails & looking East, toward Mount Rd. you're looking into the Great Cutting, through which the tramway went into the North quarry. Although mostly filled, you can still the line of it.
I was about 200 yards away yesterday so had no chance
Will have a good look at weekend all things being equal. The ground around that point is very spongy. I can be walking along and my foot suddenly go down 4 inches more than it "should", when I plunge my walking stick into it in some places it will go down nearly a foot before hitting anything solid. I know it's full of rubble but I guess there could be voids. There is a large block of concrete right around that area about 8 inches thick and two feet wide standing on its end, can't see the bottom of it, its too deep into the soil and can't see whether it is blocking an entrance, I suspect not, I think it has just been dumped there and landed in an upright position.
I was about 200 yards away yesterday so had no chance
Ok, I will put my hand up for half of that, I think my pin is about 70 yards away from where it should be, North/South wise it should be level with the southern house on that Mount Road layby road thingy.
I paced 200 longish paces south of the mount road entrance, in my head I equated that to 150 yards taking into account the slippy terrain (torvill and dean eat your hearts out, try taking long paces on hardish slippy mud) but it looks like the 200 is fairly accurate, so the pirouettes did pay off.
I've yet to find that openening where the pin was, everywhere seems to have about the same level of tree cover, it is too far into the woods for the "cutting" at the end of the tram line, isn't it?
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn
i reckon that I know pretty much exactly where it is now- famous last words and all that. You might need to send a search party out for me if I dont report back on saturday evening. Actually a night in storeton woods is quite pleasant if planned, a completely different world.
Is this any help? It's from the book "The Storeton Tramway" by R.C.Jermy. I think the road off Mount Rd. to the right, is Mill Rd. Using the scale on the map, the path shown, in alignment with the Great Cutting, is 120 yards South of Mill Rd.
Had a quick browse around, the apex extends about two feet into the ground on the right at least and is a solid structure. sadly no sign of other iron structure around there. If I had a spade etc and time and permission I would like to dig around that and the mound to the left as they are not solid underfoot and have "space in the soil" behind one large piece of concrete and below another.
Very good Bernie, there have always been too many people/kids around whenever I've been there to have a good kick on the apex to see how solid it is (good archaelogical survey technique).
The apex will be very close to the middle on the bottom edge of Chris' map. I wonder why the pit was there, either it sank or was purposeful.
I am assuming the remnant of rail is in the correct place just on the entrance to the great cutting, I didn't realise the line carried on past the great cutting and then divides in two, is that a turnstile or whatever you call it for trains/trams/trolleys?
The only area I had a proper poke around turned out to be the hollow after a dead tree had fully decomposed, it looked good until I found the stump.
We don't do charity in Germany, we pay taxes. Charity is a failure of governments' responsibilities - Henning Wehn