Treacle mining

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Treacle mining is the (fictitious) mining of treacle (molasses) in a raw form similar to coal. The subject is put forward as a serious topic but is in fact an attempt to test the credulity of the reader. The thick black nature of treacle makes the deception plausible. The topic has been a standing joke in British humour for a century or more.

Several treacle mines have been claimed to exist in Britain, most notably in Bisham (near Marlow, on the Thames), Chobham, Surrey. Tadley, Wymsey, Skidby, Ditchford and Crick in Northamptonshire and in several northern towns. The paper mills around Maidstone, in Kent, were known as "the treacle mines" by locals.

Offered explanations include:

That Cromwell's army buried barrels of molasses that later leaked and seeped to the surface.
That prehistoric sugar cane beds became fossilised in a similar way to peat and coal.

1 Origins
2 Actual places
3 History
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

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Origins

"Treacle" originally meant any kind of a thick syrupy salve, and it is likely that bituminous seeps from coal deposits were used in traditional remedies, so this may have been the kernel of truth that inspired the joke. The Tar Tunnel near Blists Hill in Shropshire has natural deposists of tar oozing from the walls which could be said to resemble treacle.

Another explanation is that "treacle" originally meant medicine, so the various healing wells around Britain were called "treacle wells". Treacle later came to mean a sticky syrup after the popularity of a honey-based drug called "Venice treacle", and the continued use of the old form in the treacle wells led to the joke. [1]

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Actual places

There is a Treacle Mine roundabout at Grays in Essex which features on the local bus timetable.

There is a pub called the Treacle Mine Hotel in Silchester Road Tadley, Hampshire, and another Treacle Mine pub in Hereford.

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History

The subject of the Treacle Mine has been a whimsical joke played on children and the gullible since at least the nineteenth century and may go back even further.

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, (1865) Alice is shushed at the Mad Hatter's tea party for disbelieving a story told to her by the Dormouse about a treacle well, inspired by the holy well at Binsey, Oxfordshire.

In Uncle and the Treacle Trouble, a children's book by J.P. Martin, the main character (an elephant named Uncle) discovers the true meaning of a cryptic sign which reads Treac Levat ("Treacle Vat").

A treacle mine features in the novels Reaper Man (1987) and Night Watch (2002) by Terry Pratchett. In the fictional Discworld city of Ankh-Morpork there is street named Treacle Mine Road.

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