The Great Laxey Mine was an extensive system of mine shafts and tunnels, which descended to a depth of 2,200 feet underground. The uppermost level of mine workings, known as the adit, was a series of tunnels extending to a mile and a half, which entered the hillside at ground level, and connected the heads of all the working mine shafts. Within this adit level a railway was provided from 1823, to allow transportation of mined ores from the mine shafts out to the external washing floors and mine yards.