Did you know that there was a chocolate mine in the UK ?

Tweet

I expect that all you people out there thought that chocolate grew on trees! Well little did you know that deep under the market town of Kirkby Lonsdale in Cumbria, England the Faeries have been mining chocolate for years!! Thick lush chocolate that the chocolatiers turn into the delicious hand made chocolates that are sold in a charming little shop called ‘Chocolat’ in the town itself! The Chocolate Mine is located underneath a lovely little shop in New Lane; Kirkby Lonsdale called ‘Chocolat’ Kirby Lonsdale is just two minutes off the A65 from Yorkshire to Kendal. This shop was opened in 2003 and was inspired by the Johnny Depp film ‘Chocolat’, taken from the novel of the same name by Joanne Harris. century and he was a regular visitor to the town; he wrote ‘Peter Pan’, with his ‘Darling’ family based on the children of the son of John - Arthur Llewellyn Davies, who was born at Kirkby Lonsdale. Now what I have just written is fact, well known and well documented. What is not as well known and documentation is difficult to find to prove, is that Peter Pan has visited Kirkby Lonsdale ever since. He still regularly visits the town. His last time was in 2004, to mark the anniversary of the owners of ‘Chocolat’ discovering that Kirkby Lonsdale was built over a seam of wonderful chocolate – how handy for a chocolate manufacturer!!!!! This, it seems, was Peter’s secret place and he even called the chocolate waterfall ‘Hook Nose Falls’ as the shape of the rocks reminded him of the shape of Captain Hook’s nose !!!! Now you may think this doesn’t sound very plausible but all that information comes from t’internet you know! Is there any geological data? Ah yes there is you people of little faith! In fact it comes from the very same source as the item above!! The website tells us that this phenomena of naturally flowing molten chocolate happens when seams of ancient cacao are packed together between ‘antagonistically opposed tectactic plates of granite’ – now is that technical enough for you? Then fresh spring water which is heated by the fires deep inside the earth bubbles through this seam; this combined with a little help from the faery world creates the chocolate!! When the molten chocolate breaks through the surface of the earth like a mini volcano (but with no air traffic stopping dust) can be farmed as molten chocolate or left to set hard and then mined. You see, it’s all quite plausible really!!! So just who mines this delectable harvest? Faeries of course!! For goodness sake you are slow! Seemingly there are actually three lots of faeries working at Kirkby Lonsdale, The Redshanks, The Bluecaps and the Chocolate Keepers. These all work very hard in their own way to mine and collect the chocolate but there is the PYO problem, you know when you go strawberry picking and eat more strawberries than go in the punnet! While a certain amount of chocolate eating on the job is permitted, some of the faeries just go too far, even to the extent of making themselves sick, like a 6 year old on Easter Sunday. The faeries who persist in this deal I’m afraid have to go, and so when you visit ‘Chocolat’, there are always a collection of faeries in display jars that can be bought and taken to a good home – away from the temptation of chocolate!! I think it would be very wise of me now to tell you just what we saw and experienced on our visit, as I think that maybe the creators of the chocolate mine website may just have been sampling some of the excellent malt whisky that they sell in the shop!! We found ‘Chocolat’ off the main street in Kirkby Lonsdale, down a little side street called New Lane, and away from the main shops. It is a very small shop that looks ordinary enough on the outside. The window displays an interesting array of bottles of whisky, country wines and champagne. A sign under the window informs you that this is the home of the Enchanted Chocolate Mine, that admission is free and invites you in to take a look. Inside the shop is tiny but you are instantly hit by the most delicious aroma of chocolate, and in the display cabinet are rows and rows of little chocolate delicacies all waiting to be purchased and consumed!! A door at the rear of the shop points you to the mine; you go down one flight of stone steps into another small room where there are rows of faeries in jars and bottles of whisky and champagne, and more interestingly, rows and rows of mining hats!! We chose our hats and made our way down a VERY steep set of stone stairs into the darkness below!! At the bottom we realised the necessity for the hard hats as the headroom was certainly designed for faeries!! The mine area itself is so small that the three of us could not fit in it together, In there, behind a window, you see Nando - the Chocolate Keeper and Head Faery – sitting on a mound of hard chocolate. A small wishing well has a small bucket hanging there, and visitors are invited to roll coins down a coin chute into the bucket. The proceeds of which, go to a children’s hospice, Derian House This charity was chosen because of Peter Pan’s (the boy who never grew up) connection to the town. I would point out that the steps are pretty hairy and not suitable for people who are not too good on their feet or do not like small spaces. There is not a lot to see in the ‘mine’ but it is entertaining and naturally as you enter the shop it would be rude not to purchase some of the chocolates. The chocolates are expensive, but incredibly delicious. This is an interesting place to visit if you are in the area and the chocolates are really, really good – just watch out for those pesky faeries. Incidentally Arthur Llewellyn Davies WAS born at Kirkby Lonsdale and the Barry connection is an actual fact!!