20/11/18

Estelle Sandford, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay, Jonathan Riley

2.5hrs

Looked at the end, it’s still about welly deep in water. Plan from last week was to drill and bang the hole in the floor half way down, either to give us a way on or at least to perhaps give us a drain hole as it does drain slowly when we fill it with buckets of water. Stu was left drilling holes while Estelle, Dave and Jon dug out the steps a bit more and carried on cementing in stone to hopefully prevent subsidence if the dig floods again this winter. Used up pretty much all of the cement and also need more dust now and exited. Satisfactory dull thud from the bang which we set off on exit.

13/11/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Mike Moxon, Stu Lindsay, Phil Hendy

2.5hrs

End still lovely and wet, puddle about welly height. Phil came along to have  a look – first time he’s seen it since he introduced us to Kevin and the dig way back in 2012! He helped with moving buckets around. Top where the bags are is getting really slippery and James fell off at one point. The end is changing but with the amount of water it’s hard to dig, but gone from high and narrow to wide and getting lower (we think, although hard to gauge the floor depth with the level of water…) At the start of the dig, we again poured some 4-5 buckets of water in the hole in the floor part way up and all drained, so we are going to blow this up and dig it out – either it may provide a way on or if not, it may provide somewhere we can drain water off too…

6/11/18

Estelle Sandford, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay

2hrs

Stu brought his drill so after we'd dug it out of the water a bit and tried to move it a bit, the big boulder in the puddle was capped and broken up. There is quite a large puddle at the end which is not draining now, in some places close to welly deep!

Estelle had changed wellies from last week to non holey ones, so went to the end to dig. Filled most of the available buckets and also pulled a lot of mud and rock from the wall. The end is mostly boulders held together by clay/mud now and pulled out a lot of rock, some of it was broken up, but many moved as they are to the steps. We have a lot of good rock now ready for building into the steps. The end is now widening a bit and seems to be lowering a bit, definitely changing again and a lot of rock... We did try putting water down the hole part way down the passage - 4 buckets and it was full - it did drain through the evening, but slowly.

Next week will depend on numbers and wetness of the end!

30/10/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Mike Moxon, Nick Hawkes

2hrs

After the bottom step was effectively completed last week, with Nick there too, we went to dig the mud from around the rock that had fallen previously and we'd brought down from the roof and then the end. about a foot or so deep of water at the end, so quite sloppy digging. Removed quite a lot of buckets doing it in stages as to start with we were only 5 as Mike was late, but with 6, it's not really enough now, we do need 7 to go all the way from dig to surface. Need to work out what to do with the remainder of the steps...

23/10/18 from Mike Moxon

Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Jonathan Riley

Just the 3 of us. We lowered extra sand / dust down the entrance & took concrete makings to the top of the steps, to mix there. After checking the water level (bit higher than last week), Dave & Jon completed walling the bottom step, whilst Mike removed 17 part buckets of mud from the top of the boulder at the end, these were dumped on the pile between concreting. Tidied up before heading to the Hunters'. Will need some more rock & concrete for further steps.

16/10/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Jonathan Riley, Fran Campbell

2hrs

took some cement, dust and sand down and took stone back in from the spoil dump to build a small wall/bottom step to help build up and protect the loose looking boulder on the right. Did as much as we could in a couple of hours and then headed to the pub! Will need to continue the work next week and then decide on what to do next with the steps. Some water at the end and Mike brought down more roof mud.

9/10/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Fran Campbell.

2.5hrs

6 new buckets. As we were just 5 at the start, we decided it was time to tackle the steps issue as that meant we could bag fill as the spoil between the bags was catching up so need to raise the bags more around the ladder especially. Took it in turns to dig – 2 people can work on the steps, one bottom and one middle and the rest rotated around. Fran turned up around ½ hour late and helped even the numbers. Looked at the end, bit of a puddle. We may be able to use the big boulder as part of the steps possibly, it still needs breaking up though. By the end of the session, we’d cleared quite a bit of step back and decision is to cement in a retaining wall of rock at the bottom and work up from there. The wall on the left as you look up is currently undermined and the left side does look like it’s mainly mud with a few large rocks in it, so this needs retaining. Right wall seems to be solid rock at least. Get some cement, sand and dust for next week.

2/10/18

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

2.5hrs

Dave had got a lot of bags from Cheddar Ales… so stashed them in top dig for now.

Hard draft with only 5! Filled 13 or 14 buckets each and then rotated around so we were emptying once all filled. One bucket demised part way so time to get some more. Bringing down lots of roof and there was a puddle in the end so a bit sloppy at times. The large boulder still needs to come out at some point, but still a fair bit of roof to go. With the buckets being quite wet, the steps were getting more eroded and we do need to do something about this soon, before the winter rains set in or we get a flood again…

25/9/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, David Walker, Mike Moxon, Jeff Broom (MCG)

2hrs

Since the end collapse last week where the boulder came out of the roof and also a large amount of spoil, we took a step back and focused on clearing everything from the roof about 5m from the end onwards. A large amount was brought down and cleared, 15 skips each and it’s getting to be really hard work with only 6, so need to do some recruitment or look to change our processes on how we dig a bit. Getting quite wet in the spoil area now and more bagging needed and we need to plan to raise the ladder soon. What looked like a boulder in the roof, is looking more like a flake of roof now and above where the big boulder had come out a few weeks back, looks to have been a bit of one of those aven type things going on as quite a lot of roof spoil there, but goes back to normal before and after. Next week or two still need to focus on the roof area. Dave agreed to collect more bags from Cheddar Ales, so thank you Cheddar Ales yet again.

19/9/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, David Walker, Jonathan Riley, Mike Moxon, Kriss Cawson (MCG), Mark Denning, Pete Hellier, Adrian Miles (BEC), Wayne (WCC)

2hrs

Moved to a Wednesday evening this week as there was an MCR meeting Tues and generally we wouldn’t have made it worthwhile, but Wednesday collected us a few new faces, which was useful to move a lot of spoil rapidly and bag quite a bit too. The 4 that hadn’t visited before headed into the upper series to have a look around it before heading into the digging section. Estelle was doing some filming for a Hidden earth video for the Mendip Roundup. Mark started digging first until he ran out of steam and then James took over and dug 10 skips, then Pete, Adrian and Wayne had a turn before Kriss went in as the last digger. During the evening there had been a bit of dig fever going on and tunnelling rather than bringing everything down from the roof and also clearing the floor out and a large boulder fell out of the roof while Kriss was digging, briefly trapping him, but he was uninjured thankfully. We brought down a load of the roof mud before exiting the dig and next session will be a major clearing session.

Video from tonight - https://youtu.be/j6HTny9XvEc

11/9/18

report from Mike Moxon
Mike Moxon, Stu Lindsay, Duncan Simey
Whilst I embedded 3 pipes in the sack wall Duncan recalibrated the distoX, then we surveyed to the end from a point on the boulder. Meanwhile Stu drilled the fallen blocks & removed the aerial runway from the far wall. At the end I moved the tools a bit further back, so they aren't under the mud in roof. Several frogs had emerged in the rain, but we left them down the hole. First night of the darts season when we got to the Waldegrave ( but still managed to leave 5 mins before the chips)

4/9/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, David Walker, Stu Lindsay

2.5hrs

Bit lean on numbers tonight, but Stu went in first to dig as he hadn’t for a while – got to just before the end and the boulder we had thought was roof was suspended and of course Stu hadn’t seen the end for a while, so didn’t immediately twig that boulder had moved since last week! Estelle noticed though and stopped Stu before he got to it and then Stu used the bar and very easily made it drop to the floor, where he set to starting to break it up a little before climbing over it and continuing digging the end. The rest of us had a good go at breaking bits off it when we were the hauling person and reduced it considerably over the course of the night. It was very calcited inside and fractured easily into gravel! Stu did dig for much of the night as the rest of the working spots are quite hard work, so we did what we could on hauling and exiting the spoil. Plan for next week when we know reduced numbers is to survey if possible and look to reduce the boulder further, possibly chemically if needed and also to remove some bits of rock from the haul path that are making it flow less easily. Capping probably best or plug & feathers.

28/8/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Jonathan Riley, Claire Havard, Stu Lindsay, Chris Barrington (MCG)

2.5hrs

Good digging session, James then Dave in first, then Claire, followed by Estelle, Jon, Mike and Chris – all on 10 buckets each, made for a good session. All bagged and looking close to being ready to raise the ladder soon. Need more digging bags soon too. Dig is still easy digging of mostly clays and mud with a few rocks in there too.

21/8/18

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon, Duncan Simey, Claire Havard, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay

2.5hrs

Good digging session with plenty of spoil brought out. Cave still retaining similar size passage, although getting more and more rock out of the floor and at one point we could dig the bar into what felt like a space, but after more digging, it appears it was just looser spoil between the rocks. Dave and Jon dug first and then Duncan took over, then Estelle, followed by Mike and Claire, most of us doing 14 each. Lots of it bagged and the wall is getting quite formidable! At the end of the digging session, Mike started hitting at a rock in the roof, which appears to be dolomitic conglomerate and he had broken it up a bit just as we finished.

14/8/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Duncan Simey, Claire Havard, Dave Walker

2.5hrs

Another good digging session despite the low numbers tonight with other commitments. Did some in 2 stages and others as hard work for the top team, but everyone had a good workout and the dig face is still looking good!

7/8/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay, Duncan Simey, Claire Havard

2.5 hours

Good digging session, lots of buckets dug out of the cave and lots of bagging done, the bag wall is looking impressive now and probably don’t need to bag much more for a while! End still going down and forwards and maintaining the height and width for the most part. Getting a few reasonable sized rocks from the dig face too.

31/7/18

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

2.5hrs

Stu didn’t dig, but the rest of us had around 10 buckets and a few rocks. Still going down well, more rock at the bottom and mostly easy digging. As 7 we got to fill some bags. Couple of frogs and toads rescued.

24/7/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, David Walker, Duncan Simey, Stu Lindsay

2.5hrs

Good session, all 6 of us had a dig. New skip at the bottom thanks to Jon and experimenting with using old bucket bases in the buckets to help with emptying. Few toads rescued again.

17/7/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Duncan Simey, Jonathan Riley, David Walker, Alex Gee, Tom Elliot, Sarah Payne

2.5hrs

Good to have some fresh visitors, none had seen the current area we were digging. Rescued yet another baby bunny before Alex, followed by Duncan, Dave, Tom, Jon and Sarah, all had a digging session. Sarah and Tom did the round trip into the upper series as well. 5 new purple skips into circulation. Bottom digging skip is knackered and needs replacing, have brought out to dry it and the ropes out, rescued a frog and a toad also. Found remains of 2 more dead bunnies in the bottom dig. Mike has removed all the additional kit we’d left in there for hauling and cleared out the top dig and removed the washing line as it’s not needed and getting a bit low now!

10/7/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Duncan Simey, Dave Walker, Fran Campbell

2.5hrs

Started with 4 of us, hard work and had to stage it with digger filling all 9 buckets and then all coming up to top section to drag out and empty. Once Fran arrived, we managed to spread out enough to stagger all of it – damned hard work with 5 still… Lots of rock removed too as well as the 9 buckets each.

Need to look to replace the drag skips, get more buckets and also take a knife down so we can change one of the ropes.

3/7/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Duncan Simey, David Walker, Jonathan Riley

2.5hrs

One baby bunny caught, other managed to escape and disappear sadly. Several toads rescued too. Another good digging session and the rock removed from passage so the bottom skip goes further now making it easier at that end. Still going down nicely, getting a few more larger rocks in the lower spoil.

26/6/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Duncan Simey, David Walker, Jonathan Riley

2.5hrs

Couple of toads to rescue as usual for this time of year. Good digging session, steadily going down, started to remove a lump of rock stopping the 2^nd skip from going further and broke up remains of a another rock to come out. 

19/6/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Mike Waterworth, Jonathan Riley, David Walker

2hrs

With a few people away, it was good to have Mike W back this week to make up the 6 meaning it wasn’t too hard to dig! Mike took the front for the first 15-20 skips, then Estelle took over, then Dave, followed by Mike M and Jon. James still suffering shoulder problems and didn’t want to dig. Changed the top rope on the bottom skip for a nicely knotted one, which made it a lot easier, need a knife for the other end as a pair of scissors isn’t robust enough. A good sized rock had come out of the wall on the left hand side since the last session, but that was broken up by Mike M and came to surface. Quite a lot of rock coming out at floor level now, so hopefully that’s a good sign.

11/6/18 - ladder lifting

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Martin Cross, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay

2hrs 5mins

Arrived to find 5 baby bunnies hiding around the skips, these were soon put in a digging bag as they were going to leap from the bucket and then exited from the cave and released away from the entrances. No idea where the mum went and hopefully they are old enough to thrive on their own. Also rescued 3 toads tonight.

Good digging session, quite dry digging and filled a good number of bags to raise the ladder buy another couple of feet so it’s in a really comfortable position now. Plenty of spoil dumping space around it. Dig at the end still heading slowly on and down in same sort of dimensions. Need to replace the ropes on the bottom skips for decent knotted ropes. At the end of the session lifted the ladder.

5/6/18

Estelle Sandford, Duncan Simey, Mike Moxon, Martin Cross, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay, Fran Campbell.

2.5hrs

Good digging session, my back was playing up so only hauled for the evening, but lots of bags filled and at the end of the digging session, raised the ladder by another layer of bags. At the start of digging found a dead pigeon in the dig, looked like a sparrowhawk had given it a beating and it hid in the dig (and shat everywhere…)

29/5/18

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon, Duncan Simey, Jonathan Riley, David Walker

2.5hrs

Very hard work… found a dead baby bunny at the top which we buried. Took a skip down to the bottom to try and make the bottom work easier. The poor person with the steps and the haul is hard work now, but the rest is easier! All had a dig during the evening. Still going nicely down although right hand wall has a curve going on currently.

22/5/18 back at the end digging

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, David Walker, Jonathan Riley, Mike Moxon, Duncan Simey

2.5hrs

Another good session, finally digging the end again after clearing the last of the infill from the winter floods. Found a baby bunny at the end, sadly we couldn’t catch it so it’s likely to meet its demise. More toads rescued.

15/5/18

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon, Duncan Simey, Jonathan Riley, Martin Cross

2hrs

Still clearing the debris from winter flooding, last of it hopefully tonight so first digger in next week should be digging the end.

8/5/18

Estelle Sandford, Jonathan Riley, Mike Moxon, Duncan Simey

2hrs

Investigated the end of the dig first and it is dry enough to access and dig, but there is a lot of slumped in spoil to clear before we can start digging again. Estelle started digging the steps until tired and then swapped out so Jon could dig. We found we needed 3 in the cave ideally, so Mike on the outside was having a hard time with having to haul and empty. Swapped again for Duncan for a while and then Mike at the end. We definitely need a minimum of 5, preferably 6 or 7 next week. Hopefully we’ll be able to start digging the end before the end of the next session.

24/4/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Duncan Simey, Dave Walker, Jonathan Riley

2hrs

Dave remembered a knife so got to cutting the skip to fit the buckets. Started on the mission of clearing out the slumped in from the end of the railway. Got part way down the steps by the end of the night taking it in turns to dig. Still at least another 1-2 sessions before we’ll be at the end, assuming the water levels drop any time soon…

17/4/18

from Mike Moxon - him, Stu, Dave & Jon present.

Level had dropped again to about an inch on the shelf where we left the empty bags, so I dug all 5 lots of them out & stacked wet mud on right of passage to come out later. Stu, Dave & Jon worked on supporting the rails.

3/4/18 water levels back up, but railway work commences

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Stu Lindsay, David Walker, Duncan Simey

2hrs

having made the decision last week that we need to give the railway a go and remove the aerial runway, that was the plan for this evening. Armed with tools and capping kit, the railway was lowered in from the top. The dig was looked at for water levels and it's back up above the step down again, probably back to nearly the highest we've seen it as it had done nothing but rain for the last few days - suspect we're a good month away from getting back into digging the end, but there is quite a bit of clearing and tidying up we can be getting on with in the meantime.

Aerial runway removed, Stu set to work dealing with the stubborn hump of rock in the middle, around 8-10 caps later and it was relatively flat. The railway was laid out and we'll look to get some bags under it to make it more stable as we fill some. Need more brewery bags. Headed to pub after. Also removed some frogs/toads and newts from the big hole and also the one with the stemples in.

27/3/18 water levels dropping a little...

Estelle Sandford,  Jonathan Riley, David Walker.

2hrs

went to have a look at the state of the water levels and see what maintenance we need to do also. There has been some collapse at the hedge end of the shaft and also under the opposite end, including one end of the washing line being ripped out, including it's rock that it was bolted to. We took a look in the dig and it was about 10m from the end and possible to see the end wall. There was a dead baby rabbit in the water, which we removed. There is a lot of mud washed/slumped in from where it's been flooded and the steps are pretty much gone, so we do need to do quite a bit of clearing. Looked in the other dig and that has also slumped quite a bit, found another baby rabbit dead in the water there. Removed that too and also there was one near the entrance to the main dig dead. Removed 10 toads and 2 newts with an additional newt from the stempled hole. With the washing line down, we collected the bags up and those that were clean are bagged up ready for use. Those still dirty put back on the other ladder and remaining section of line. Where the collapse by the hedge end is, we dug the ladder out and also the two skips that had been buried by it. One is trash and the other may be of use. Also did some wall building with the additional rock that had come down. Decision made that next week we'll remove the aerial runway and replace it with the railway Stu made ages back.

4/3/18 still flooded...

Dave Walker checked again today and the dig is still flooded. With the snow melt and more rain on the radar, i guess it may well remain flooded for a little while longer yet... 

28/1/18 still flooded...

Dave Walker had gone across on the 14/1/18 to check and it was slightly lower than previous weeks, but still flooded. 

28/1/18

Estelle Sandford, James Begley went to check dig

Dig still flooded, didn't need to go down the ladder really to check as could see the levels of the bottom dig... Estelle did go down to check though as wanted to see how far it might have come up. The buckets at the entrance to the top dig haven't moved or got water in, so it hasn't reached there at all. I reckon judging by the walls though that it's been about a metre higher than it is now. What is more concerning is that there has been a slump below the hedge and you can see quite a lot of roots and not very much of one of the ladders below that had bags hanging on it as it's a bit buried! 

7/1/18 still underwater...

Estelle Sandford

10mins

A quick trip down to see where the water levels were at. They have risen by a good foot or more and possibly were more judging by the wet/dry looking patch on the rock – currently at top step level of the stepped bit. We’ve had a bit of a collapse of white stuff at the end of the aerial runway section. I didn’t drop down any further than sitting on the ledge by the aerial runway to take photo. Reckon at least a week of dry weather likely to be needed to drain this… 

NYE flood! 31/12/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Duncan Simey, Miri Simey, Dave Walker, Jonathan Riley and Mike Moxon turned up just as we were leaving.

30mins

Arrived and got kitted and headed down to be met with a completely flooded dig thanks to the very heavy rains in the last week or two. Old bottom dig had about 7ft head of water and main dig, about 20m of passage is submerged and it’s up to the 2^nd step on the steeper slope… May take a day or two to clear with the horrendous weather forecast.

12/12/17

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Duncan Simey, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker

2.5hrs

full on session of 15 buckets each so 90 done total. Quite wet outside, but good progress. Need more people next time so we can fill some brewery bags around the bottom of the ladder.