15/8/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Andrew McLeod

2.5hrs

6 of us can just about work it with the skips rather than resorting to bags, but it’s harder work having to take them further, but we each took it in turns to remove 15(ish) buckets from the dig. There is a large boulder we’re digging around in the floor and seems to be going down a bit as well there – suspect the boulder will need some additional persuasion of the Dr Nobel’s kind to reduce in order to get it out. Still a reasonable amount of digging around it to actually see how big it is though. Estelle removed the 2^nd of the catch boulders with hammer/bar below the aerial highway so the buckets are staying on better now too as the line has sagged a bit again. 

8/7/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Duncan Simey, Stu Lindsay, Dave Walker, Andrew McLeod

2.5hrs

Good digging session and we tightened the wire for the aerial runway too and also filled a bunch of the new brewery bags we’d got. All bar Stu had a dig tonight and still going down slowly although lost about a foot on height at the moment at the end. Floor channel still there and a bit of an alcove off to the left. Pulling out a few larger boulders now. The spoil heap outside is slowly rising! 

1/8/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Duncan Simey, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Stu Lindsay, Mike Waterworth, Luke Edwards, David Walker

2.5hrs

Really good productive digging session. Firstly moved from staging area to outside and emptied the 30 odd bags Kevin filled last week, then we set to digging using the skips this week as with 9, it gave us easy movement. Mike showed Luke around the site initially as he’d not been before and also with his geology knowledge would hopefully give us some ideas of what’s in the spoil. Stu dug first and as there was a lot of us, we did roughly 15-20 skip changeover for everyone. David went in second, then Mike W, then Luke, then Duncan. We were into 3 figures of skips, by the end, lost count though! The spoil heap is noticeably getting bigger and we’ve put another layer of bags around the base of the ladder. Needing to get some more brewery bags before next week’s session. 

25/7/17

Estelle Sandford, Jonathon Riley, Kevin Clinton, Joan Goddard, David Walker (WCC & Wells museum)

2.5hrs

Emptied the bags from last week and then got on with digging. Kevin stayed digging the face all evening and filled some 30-40 bags. David and Joan were collecting samples of the spoil to get it geologically investigated. 

18/7/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Liz Wire - Jon had car problems and didn't make it

2hrs

emptied the bags we filled last week and then Liz filled about a dozen which we brought to surface for emptying. Few baby toads to rescue too. 

11/7/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Miri Simey

2hrs

Not enough to do the full haul so a bag filling session – did 10 bags each and stacked ready for moving next week as ran out of time. Dig still looking good and heading nicely downhill following water worn passage. Toad rescue for 3 big toads that were in the spoil heap. 

27/6/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Duncan Simey, Miri Simey, Jonathan Riley, Stu Lindsay

2.5hrs

Last week Duncan, Mike and Jon filled a lot of bags from the dig and stashed them as only the 3 of them, so first job was to get them out. Duncan’s bags were massive and I think he may have learned he will lose friends (to a hernia if nothing else!) if he overfills bags again! They need to be smaller and more ‘rugby ball’ shaped rather than massive footballs to make it easier for emptying. Once emptied, digging and hauling out commenced. Estelle did all the digging tonight as we didn’t start digging until a bit later. We must be a good 10m down the slope at least now and there is a water worn channel in the floor and still getting mini-avens above. 2 large rocks removed from right hand shelf tonight as well. Usual quality of random coloured and textured spoil coming out. 

20/6/17

Duncan Simey, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley

from Mike - As we were short on numbers we filled 40 bags with mud & found another tiny aven before retiring to the Hunters'.