Just watching Dibnah build his mineshaft in the back garden for the
umpteenth time and it jars on me, so I thought I would come here and
see if anybody has the definitive word.

Dibnah is bricking his shaft from the bottom. This basically means he
must remove the earth from under the bricks in order to lay the
courses, rather like building a high wall from the bottom. This seems
a very dangerous procedure and certain death when a certain weight of
brickwork is met.

The technique I was given years ago is that the bricks are laid from
the top and all the man down the shaft has to do is clear the soil
away from under the construction ring and remove the infill so the
weight of the bricks moves down the hole and maximum safety is
maintained. The rate of descent is completely under the control of the
shaft man.

Anybody got the correct technique?