Extension
Objections to further work had been raised in Parliament and by residents of Holywell, who feared that the proposed drainage would affect their water supply, and particularly that of the famous St Winefride's Well. Supporters of the Milwr and District Mines Drainage Bill pointed out that mining had already been carried out in the area without substantial disruption to the area's water supply.
Legal changes, however, passed in 1913 allowed the HMTC to continue driving the tunnel, at rates of up to 45 feet weekly, to a point beneath Halkyn Mountain by 1919. At 6am on 5 January 1917, the tunnel broke into a "loch", or flooded cavern, at the intersection of the Pant Lode: 10,000 gallons of water a minute flowed into the tunnel, sweeping away trucks and seriously hampering work for some weeks. 11 hours later St Winefride's Well, where water from the Halkyn Mountain system had resurged several miles away, ran dry as the water table fell. Water was eventually restored to the well via the Holywell Boat Level.
Following takeover by the Halkyn District United Mines Ltd in 1928, the tunnel was progressively extended, reaching Olwyn Goch in 1931 and intersecting several valuable and productive new veins. Low lead prices in 1938 caused the majority of the workforce to be temporarily laid off, but Pilkington's Glass began using the tunnel to excavate high quality limestone from 1939; this quarrying continued until 1969, creating large artificial caverns west of Olwyn Goch.
Lead mining commenced again in earnest in 1948 after ore prices climbed, and the tunnel was driven further south through several new lodes, in 1957 reaching a point at lode 477, the Cathole Vein, at which large quantities of sand and clay were being forced into the tunnel: no further extension was made beyond this point. In 1962, the Holywell-Halkyn Mining and Tunnel Co. Ltd, together with Halkyn District United Mines Ltd, became subsidiaries of Courtaulds, which wished to maintain the tunnel to supply water to its factory at Holywell. Lead mining was still carried out sporadically from existing veins until 1977, and maintenance work continued until 1987, when the tunnel finally closed. During its period of operation the tunnel had produced around 200,000 tons of lead ore and 80,000 tons of zinc ore.
Read more about this topic: Milwr Tunnel
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