Along the Viking Way walkers now wander.
A verdant wold valley soothing all tension.
Nurtured by time’s quiet embrace the path meanders to Caistor.
A dream trickles, ashes wave, views beckon.
But the walker now stumbles across the mine’s remains.
Nettleton Top and Bottom closed tunnel’s opening.
Once two hundred men toiled here under these quiet country lanes.
The iron ore prized out with brute shovel and drill powering.
Fifteen one-ton trucks a day, farm work after the eight hour early shifts.
By 1968 and closure, for grinding labour six pounds a week.
An accident in 1872, deaths at Claxby nearby, the Rev Sumner of Nettleton writes.
That gloomy cavern of disaster, safety improvements I seek.
Now once where the mine railway stood there stirs only a faint memory.
The walker carries on, his mind and his life in another country.