25/8/20

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

2hrs, plus an extra 1.5hrs for Stu and Dave

Stu arrived early again to cap more boulders in the chamber, but this was a bit fruitless as with Storm Ellen and Francis having gone through in the last week, all that could be seen was the tops of a few of the larger boulders, the rest of the chamber was under about 2.5ft of water. He capped a few of the larger ones that were just above that area and then headed out soon after. Dave had arrived a bit earlier too and had helped with clearing and Jon went in next to break any boulders he could. Jon then moved onto digging the ceiling, Dave swapped out further up the chain with Fran who also did some digging in the roof and floor where the grill and puddle is. Lots of roof coming down from a very drippy aven. We came out around 8:30 to get to the Waldegrave in time for another ‘eat out to help out’ half price meal.

If we don’t see more dry weather to dry the chamber out, we’re going to have to look at pumping options – looking at 2 pumps, sludge pump for the end to bring up to the end of the railway to perhaps a water butt we can install there, and then another pump to bring to the surface, but this doesn’t need to deal with sludge then.

18/8/20

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay, Mike Moxon

2hrs plus Stu an hour earlier

Stu arrived early to cap boulders again. Very successful capping session, so much so that the 3 diggers after didn’t manage to clear all the boulders he’d broken up! Dave was there a little earlier too, so he filled the first round of buckets with mostly rock, then Estelle went in and cleared a load of rock and mud from around the removed rocks, followed by Mike doing the last session before heading out to ensure we got to the Waldegrave in time for a ‘eat out to help out’ half price meal. Stu planning on doing an early capping session again next week as some of the boulders that were broken up, are not smashing with the hammer and too big to carry and for the skips. The chamber remains mostly dry despite there having been a bit of rain in the last week.

11/8/20

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

2hrs digging with an extra hour for Stu

Stu arrived early to cap some boulders in the chamber at the end so we can clear the floor. He’d just about run out of drill power/caps by the time we all arrived at 6:30. Jon went in first and smacked up some rocks making them small enough to fit in the skips, most of his session was rocks, then James went in and cleared more rocks and headed into removing some mud too. Finally Mike went in for the last session and mostly clearing spoil from the end wall and noted there seems to possibly be an inlet or aven above too. All easy digging and still nice and dry at the end. Headed out 8:30ish to pub.

4/8/20

 

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

2hrs

Despite it being bone dry on last visit around a month ago, there was now a pool at the end on the grill and a little bit of water in the floor around the boulders near the end. Stu went in to dig first and filled all 18 buckets, before Estelle took over and filled about a dozen as nursing a bad back – the digging was mostly in the wall going forwards, and is fairly easy going. Dave then took over and filled around another dozen or so and as we had arranged to visit the Waldegrave from about 20:15 as first week of being open since the COVID19 restrictions were lifted, we made a point of packing up to give us time to get there!