A series of photographs showing Lumpsey Mine, in this one we can see the man bending at the front has put the ’sprag’ (a heavy rod) into the wheel of the tub to stop it moving, the sprags were very heavy. Many of the horse leaders had serious accidents throwing the sprag into the wheel of the moving tub, if they didn’t get it right then it often came back onto their legs. We have to remember that the mines were not level they had to follow the seam of ironstone up hill and down dale.
I was, first of all, a Sprag boy (SPROG), it was dangerous work; you could easily break your wrist, if you were not careful! We used to put BETS ON as to how near we could stop it before it reached the Cage Shutter! You can see the shaft Cage in the background.