Sligo Mines

Raymond Bell
Feb 27
3 min read

Gleniff Horseshoe

21st February 2026

Mark, Bryan & Ray ( Was meant to be a lot more members on this one, but things happen, worked out for the best really, as it turned out to be a trip that too many wouldn't have worked and be a lot of waiting around, too cold and wet for that stuff)

Ray & Mark met up at the Hub for around 10 am, piled all into one car and headed over to the meeting point over at the Horseshoe area, where we met Bryan, who had camped up on the mountain, "Maybe not the best of choices" given the weather! He is a big boy, can make up his own mind!

Anyway, after changing into our waterproofs and packing the bags, we headed up the mountain, about an hour and a bit hike up.

We located Barton's Hole quickly, a very natural-looking hole/Doline indeed with a barytes vein running through most of it.

Started to rig to descend down to the ledge below, on noticing that there was only one rusty hanger with a rusty concrete screw, a surface bounce test was done where this hanger moved and was way to risky to go on, so we placed a traverse and Y Hang to descend down safety to the grass slope below, where we encounter some more horrible Hangers and bolts, placing another good bolt on the only half ok rock available to anyone! , a triple anchor made, with most the weight going on the new bolt and backed up by the rubbish ones, a descent of a few metres was done, where rope rub seemed to be to much to even chance any further, definitely for the way back up, with only bringing three bolts and hangers (All stainless steel) so should last that little longer, we couldn't progress any further really and finding very hard to find any good rock to anchor off to make 40m drop to the bottom, some further thinking will be needed to be done for this one.

As we hung there, and no one even dislodging anything a mighty thunder from below came up through the whole Mine and up the hole, some big collapse may have just happened within the mine.

Given the loose nature of all the holes and shafts up here, I'd say it's best that one at a time descend the whole thing, then move over to a safe area out of the way, as its near impossible not to loosen something along the way.

After derigging and getting out, we walked down the valley rift area, crossing pools and exploring shafts.

We entered the second shaft down from Barton's hole, anchoring a solid air vent pipe and ladder, after making our way down a slippery, crumbly slope, Y hang down 5m to the shaft and deviation of a solid and tested rail across the shaft, descent around 15m down to the floor, Bryan looked up high behind the ladder to a squeeze and i explored down, where we where met by another 10m pitch down to another level.

Needing more gear to go any further, we both headed back up.

Further down the valley, we explored more shafts and bits of mines.

Wet through to the skin and darkness falling on us, we started heading back, unpegging Bryan's tent and carrying it down the mountain like a stretcher. We made it back to the car, where the rain eased off a little bit to allow us to somewhat get changed.

So after some club talk, we have decided to take on a more expedition style trips up here to descend, survey and record these workings in more detail.