Peak district chert mine Part 1 Permission visit BCA registration required Starting off as a quarry in the late 1700s this mine was driven for the extraction of chert . Chert is a rock very similar to flint amd in prehistoric times was used for making tools like axes . In more modern times it was ground down into calcined flint and used as a whitening agent in earthenware manufacture . On the 19th of June 1899 a miner was killed by a explosion inside the mine after the rigged charge failed to go