There are several feldspar quarries around Derome. You can drive right up to the mine and park there. To get down to the water you have to climb down a few meters so it’s good if you have a rope to put and tie to the trees up at the edge to be able to hold on when you get down and up. At the bottom there is an old ladder that looks easy to use for going up and down but it is quite dark and not in bad condition so if you need to use it you’d better bring your own ladder in better condition.

The western mine has a maximum depth of 18 m. The bottom is very silty and it is easy for visibility to become zero if you touch the bottom or walls. There are a lot of old structures from the mining to look at, including piles and iron grates. There are two open pits that are partially filled with water (Just north of tunnel A). In the western part of the open pit there is a mine (Marked with A in the picture). The entrance is quite narrow about 15 m in and the entrance is 5 m wide and goes to 11 m deep. Inside the tunnel, visibility is worse compared to outside the open pit. There is another mine (Marked with a B in the picture) that is found in the eastern part of the open pit. It goes about 30 m into the rock. The entrance to tunnel B is 6 to 5 m deep and the opening is 10 m wide.

The picture on the right shows two of the mines in Derome. The tunnels of the western mine are marked A and B.

There are some information signs at the site. These signs were made by Chester Eriksson who grew up on a farm just below the mines. We have received much of the information about the site from him and he is also the one who contributed the old pictures from the site.

The large mining in V. Derome, which is where we did our diving, started in 1906 but already in 1860 mining operations were started a few kilometers northeast of V. Derome Mines by Danes. However, this operation ceased in 1864.

The mining in Derome was at its largest in the years leading up to the First World War and the workforce was then up to 30 men. Feldspar and quartz were what was mined. Feldspar was used, among other things, in porcelain manufacturing, for example for insulators. The wage for a worker was in 1910 about 17.5 öre/hour and in 1954 the wage was 2.90 SEK/hour. The working week was then 60 hours.

Small railway wagons were used to transport the stone into the mine. The stone was then transported out of the mine using a walking frame. This was a large wheel on the engine house that once powered a new one. The stone was also transported further by horse on the old mining road that ran along a bog.

In the 1920s, access to crude oil engines, compressors, drilling machines, etc. was gained, which made mining easier. A new road was built to facilitate transport and trucks transported the stone to Gothenburg and Varberg harbour for further transport by train and boat. Local workers loaded the train wagons by hand. At first, local workers worked in the mine, but then people from Dalarna, Värmland and Stockholm were employed.

When the Second World War broke out, there was soon a shortage of oil and a steam engine was purchased. There was plenty of wood. The steam engine powered a large compressor, hoist and a log cutter. The mine was closed down in the 1950s because they got cheaper sorted stone from Finland.

Most of the stone was quarried in the now water-filled large, round hole. There has always been talk of a path “as big as a church” and this made it extra exciting to dive at the site. The fact that the information is correct does not mean that we have made several measurements at the site. The fact that the visibility was not fantastic does not make things any worse.

On the surface around the mine there are still remains of the large sorting house, the engine house, the forge, the machine shed, etc. There is a large attic now just west of the mine, there used to be a large cave excavated from the rock. The walls were red and with pieces of quartz and mica blown in. In front of the cave there was a large plane and in front of this a mirror of water and a shallow shaft that opened into a bog. The site has now been filled in and made into a turning area.