Well/Mineshaft Brickworking techniques?

[EricP]

Just watching Dibnah build his mineshaft in the back garden for the umpteenth time and it jars on me, so I thought I would come here and see if anybody has the definitive word.

Dibnah is bricking his shaft from the bottom. This basically means he must remove the earth from under the bricks in order to lay the courses, rather like building a high wall from the bottom. This seems a very dangerous procedure and certain death when a certain weight of brickwork is met.

The technique I was given years ago is that the bricks are laid from the top and all the man down the shaft has to do is clear the soil away from under the construction ring and remove the infill so the weight of the bricks moves down the hole and maximum safety is maintained. The rate of descent is completely under the control of the shaft man.

Anybody got the correct technique?

[chris_doran]

Googling this group on "digging a well" will find previous discussions and a reference to

which indicates that both methods you describe were used, and yes, it was risky.

I'd guess the sinking a tube method would fail in certain soils. There is a TV programme where Brunel or one of his contemporaries is trying to use a giant vertical concrete tube to get down to depth for a tunnel under the Thames, and it gets stuck until they apply huge weights.

Chris

[Ian Stirling]

You may have missed the 'hammer out radial spikes a fair distance into the surrounding soil' step that was in there somewhere.

[tony sayer]

In article , chris [e-mail] writes

Rotherhite around 1825 IIRC.....

[EricP]

I did. Thanks :))

[EricP]

I will follow that. Thanks :)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Did you miss the bit about hammering in substantial steels radially into the surrounding earth every few courses?

It's certainly a fascinating subject.