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Pibble Mine

(Or Last of the Summer Wine Galloway Style)

Thursdays are usually reserved for the Wigtownshire Amateur Radio Club meetings at the Academy in Stranraer but this particular Thursday in May 2007 the lads decided to play truant, Willie 2M0WUL(Cleggy), John MM0GOF (Seymour), Davy MM0KBT (Foggy) and myself MM1BHO (Compo) thought we would explore an old lead and copper mine near Creetown.

We went via Cambret Hill to admire the view from there (and see if there was anything lying about) of course there was nothing that was easily liftable without the aid of a large crane and a flat bed lorry. It was a pleasant evening with plenty of sunshine but a little bit cooler than one would have liked.

We arrived at Cambret to survey the scenery and check out the latest addition to the kit on the hill namely a unit for measuring earth tremors (is there something we should know about?) having checked out the solar panel and added it to our wish list we moved on to the mast area itself to examine the GB3DG aerial and admire the view.

Attempts were made to identify the farms and houses which could be seen from the hill. This task being accomplished we set off for our destination, Pibble Mine. The mine is located at NX524606 and it involves a bit of a detour across farmland but it well worth a visit, there is not much left of the buildings as most of those were probably used to fill in the mine shaft or were "borrowed" to build barns etc in the local area, what can be seen is the winding house and what appears to be some kind of waterway which may have fed a large water wheel which would have driven machinery for breaking down the ore.

The large man made loch which would have supplied the water for driving the water wheel appears to be used for fishing. We explored the area and decided to walk further up the hill to check out the spoil heaps etc, we were on our way up the hill when our resident weather man Davy pointed to a large black cloud approaching from the west, discretion being the better part of valour we turned back towards the car and managed to reach it before we got too wet.

This meant that our evenings exploration had been cut somewhat short so we had no alternative but to return to Creetown and the Ellen Gowan Hotel for a well earned drink, as a matter of interest the Ellen Gowan Hotel featured in the Whicker Man film.