Beauty of limestone caverns

Richard Davies remembers when going into a mine meant walking for miles underground with a pick axe and getting covered in black dust.

So, he was not prepared for the beauty of the limestone mines with their crystal clear canals and breathtaking high ceilings.

"Going into the limestone mines was an amazing experience that I will never forget," says the 66-year-old from Hednesford.

"The condition it is in after all this time is amazing. It is totally different to when I used to work down in the mines because they were chiselling away at rock, which is much harder than coal. This definitely needs to be preserved and it will be wonderful if it is open to the public."

Richard was one of four lucky Express & Star readers who won a competition to travel 250ft underground to explore the magical limestone mines.

Plans to open the mines form part of the Black Country's Urban Park bid for £50 million of lottery cash.

To vote for the Black Country bid call 0870 2424604 (calls cost no more than 10p from a landline).

If the Black Country is awarded the money the largest underground canal basin in the world and the huge Step Shafts cavern will become a unique tourist attraction and educational facility.

The bid also includes plans to revamp the Wren's Nest Nature Reserve, create a "green corridor" between West Bromwich and Walsall, and breathe new life into Wolverhampton's canals.

The Urban Park is competing in a public vote for the cash against Cornwall's Eden Project, Nottingham's Sherwood Forest and a national cycle route by Sustrans.

Phone voting started today and ends at noon on Monday.

"There were a lot of coal mines in Hednesford and I first went to work in them when I was 16-years-old," says Richard, who also took son Gary into the caves.

"It was tough working down the mines and I wouldn't want to do it again. I only worked in the Valley Pit for five years because the money was very poor and you could get more working on a building site.

"We used to go down in a cage which was three tiers high – if you were in the middle tier you would have men standing above and below you, and there were no barriers infront of you. They would drop us down so fast that you couldn't make out the individual bricks on the wall lining the shaft.

"It was my job to drive the pit ponies and we used to walk with them through the air doors. We often walked for more than a mile before we reached the area we were working on. However, there would often be belts running along the sides of the tunnels and sometimes you could get on them and ride to your destination – there would often be 20 men working together on the rock face."

Richard's son Gary, 42, from Stafford says he was impressed with the limestone mines. "I expected them to be a lot more claustrophobic, like being in a coal mine, but it was huge," he says. "It is the scale which amazes you – it is very impressive."

John Davies from Sedgley was another reader to win the chance to go down the mines and he took his friend Greg Dunn, aged 55. When John emerged from the caves, in the small crane-operated lift, he spoke about the awe-inspiring sights.

"It was fantastic," he says. "I thought it might be a bit more claustrophobic but when you get out of the lift you just gaze in amazement."

John is a retired local government officer who now does voluntary work for children's charity CARP – Children Activity Recreation Project. "I drive the canal boats for the charity," he said. He first met Greg at the Dudley Canal Trust where he skippered the boats taking tourists from the Black Country Living Museum into some of the caverns. He added that they would tell visitors of the other mines which were hidden from the public. "It whet our appetite to find out more about the mines, little did we know that we would one day be going down into them."

John Davies added: "These mines must be saved at all costs, they are the jewel in the Black Country's crown."