Wednesday 29th August

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mark and Jo Denning, Mike Moxon, Leonie Woodward and Henry Dawson.
2.5hrs
Mark & Jo in first, removed quite a few skips – using 2 people hauling as skips getting heavy! Then Leonie and Mike took over for a while and then Henry and Mark. Rest of us hauling and moving the spoil heap around for the evening. Probably moved a good 1.5tonnes, if not more from the dig and down by another 2-3ft. Now need a longer ladder as really at a point where we won’t get out easily if it gets levelled off completely at the bottom… Also need to work out how we deal with the hauling as currently 2 people walk away from the pulley but any further and they will fall down another hole!

Wednesday 22nd August

Mark Denning, Stu Lindsay and Tim Large arrived at 6pm and put a pulley and bolt in place on the floor to make hauling easier and stop the risk of pulling the A frame over and Mark also secured the legs better. The 3 of them did about 20 odd skips of spoil using Stu's new digging skip until Mark broke his spade. Shortly after than Estelle Sandford & James Begley arrived (fortunately with another spade which Estelle left in the car from last week) and digging recommenced. Trevor Hughes turned up with a freebie wheelbarrow he'd rescued from a skip and repaired and took Stu with him to Caine Hill while the rest of us carried on digging and hauling. Similar amount of spoil removed, guess around 80 buckets but with only 4 people, it really is relentless on the work involved! Lowered the dig by approx another 3ft and rescued a baby newt which was relocated to nearer the pond for safety.
Dig time 3hrs.

Wednesday 15th August

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon, Stu Lindsay, Henry Dawson & James Begley with a visit from Paul & Tiggy from SMCC.

We had a look at the new hole (which is roughly half way between the really big hole nearest the hedge and the one the digger was by last week) and it looks interesting, but decided to carry on digging where we started last week. Mark and Stu G went down into the dig first with Stu L and Henry on hauling duty and  Estelle on bucket emptying until Mike turned up and assisted with the hauling - few problems with the angle of hauling and the A frame nearly being pulled over so need to haul directly under frame which meant it was essential to keep the weight of the skips down, so we opted for Stu L's newly designed skip as it was smaller. A large number of skips were removed from the dig and there was signs in two places on the side walls of passage heading off before they came out and swapped. Kevin kindly brought us coffee over to the dig and soon after James turned up with Paul & Tiggy to show them the site and James then assisted on hauling for the rest of the evening as he hadn't brought caving kit over. Estelle and Henry went in to dig next, around another 20ish removed and then Estelle came out and Stu L went in for a dig. Floor across the entire dig being cleared of mud and rocks and we have lowered the dig by a good couple of feet. They came out and Mark and Stu G went back in for another go. The mound of spoil we've created is nearly half the size of the pile Kevin had created digging the other one with the digger!!! Roughly around 70-80 skips removed - we lost count somewhere along the way! We were forced to stop and retreat to the pub when the digging bucket broke (a bolt came out and was lost in the mud) and the heavens started to open after just under 3hrs digging.

Looking good and planning on being there same time, same place next Wednesday evening! 

Wednesday 15th August - to confirm...

spoke to Kevin tonight to confirm all ok for Wednesday (which it is) and he advised me that since we were there last week, he's dug open another hole and he thinks he can see rounding at the bottom and reckons it might be quite easy to dig open...
Will see you all over there around 6:30ish... 

Wednesday 8th August - A frame in place...

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon, Henry Dawson, Stu Lindsay, Tim Large and Trevor Hughes went over to White Pit to retrieve the capstan winch and A frame for relocation to Cutler's Green. Good job there was 8 of us for this job as that winch is very heavy. We used slings and 2 of the A frame legs to spread the weight between us carrying it across the field. After loading it into Mark's van, Stu, Trev and Tim went to Caine Hill and left us to take the winch. Thanks to them for diverting from important bag hauling exercise to help us out tonight!

The 5 of us then went over to Cutler's Green and after Mark, Mike and Henry had a good first look around at the holes, we made the decision to put the A frame over the hole nearest the top corner of the field, which appears to have the most solid walls and the A frame fits neatly across. The one quite large loose boulder at the top was dislodged by Mark into the hole to make safe and we proceeded to get the winch / A frame set up. Our reasoning for not setting up over the big hole that the pond had disappeared down was that would require more engineering to get started so we can plan to get a platform set up and built over the forthcoming weeks/months, but at least we can start digging immediately on the hole we've chosen.

The winch and A frame were ably put over the hole and Henry then dropped down into it and we removed the rock, plus a little more spoil before heading to the pub - a massive 4 skips of rubble! But we're started and that's the important bit.

Kevin was unavailable this evening and next digging session is planned for next Wednesday evening - meet at the dig around 6:30pm onwards. 

Initial visit to Cutler's Green Sinkholes

Saturday 4th August, 2012

Through a post on facebook diggers group, we obtained information regarding Cutler's Green Sinkholes via Phil Hendy, which is over at Chewton Mendip. http://goo.gl/maps/oBHHL shows the google maps view, which was taken at the point (2006) where he had cleared the surface of the land, the gorge and much of the area now is grassed over. The history of the place is that 12 years ago a large carp pond was swallowed overnight by one of the shafts and the landowner Kevin, has been trying to get interested parties (mainly geologists and archaeologists via museums/universities) to come and dig it. After spotting an article on digging in the Mendip Times, he got in contact with Phil Hendy who passed the information out as 'diggers wanted'.

Trevor Hughes, Stu Lindsay, Stu Gardiner, James Begley and myself visited the site yesterday afternoon and had a chat with the landowner about digging the site. He showed us the shafts and talked at length about the history of the area and that some of the shafts have been dug reasonably deep with a digger and there was a gorge there as well at one point, and that the biggest and deepest of the shafts he had to fill in before it swallowed the fence and upset his neighbour! He has removed a number of finds of bones, fossils, petrified wood, coral and interesting rocks and has quite a large collection and is clearly quite passionate about his holes in the ground! There is at least 6 shafts looking worth attacking, although chances are they would potentially all meet up underground, which makes this the ideal project for any number of people wishing to be involved. Kevin has said he will deal with spoil removal with his digger, so we don't have to worry about that, we just need to get digging basically!

We are proposing to take over an A frame and winch on Wednesday night to get the ball rolling and also install a log book at the site so all digging at the site can be recorded. This blog will also be used for recording information and linking images and planning digging evenings/days. We would like this to become a nice project for anyone interested in digging and leaving the politics at home within any of the caving clubs, so if anyone is interested, point them in the direction of the diggers. I have given the regular White Pit diggers plus Stu, James and Trev rights to post here and will add anyone else as they join in.

With regards to photos, there are a number of free upload sites available, so any taken, please upload somewhere and post a link or pass to someone with more technical nous if you aren't sure how to!
I'm intending on using my google account for my photos and the ones taken yesterday by me of the site and some of Kevin's finds are to be found here - https://plus.google.com/photos/104708662744792505290/albums/5773157977179467425