10/9/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay, Will Sampson

2hrs

Stu’s first time back after his hip replacement, so on strict orders not to overdo it. Jon had car problems, so Estelle met Will and  ensured he found the dig this time. First job was to raise the ladder, so while this was prepared, Estelle checked the end to see if pumping was needed as it had rained a lot yesterday. Not required, so went back up and the ladder was raised another couple of rungs up. Once safely secured, Dave headed in to dig and Will behind him, Stu was able to haul and lift buckets out of skip, but nothing further – he’d also brought a new modified skip for the railway, which may need a bit more modification as it wasn’t running as smooth as it should. Once Dave had done his 20, we all headed out to empty the skips into bags and then Will went in to dig – down to timescales, he only filled 10 skips and then we headed off to the pub. Bottom skip needs replacing, so need to get another drum and cut back sooner rather than later. Next time we move the ladder, will need an adjustable spanner to remove the top section.

3/9/19

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Chris Duberry

2hrs

Chris went in first to dig, we’ve found an extra bucket so now it’s 20 each! Very easy digging tonight, mud seemed to be slicing off nicely, he soon nailed his 20 and then Estelle dug 20, all going straight on still, plus bringing down some from above – some didn’t need help… Mike went in and did 20 next and because we were digging so fast, there was time for Jon to do 20 as well! We finished off emptying buckets before heading to the pub. We need to bring a spanner over, we also need a new skip for the bottom runway – Jon working on getting.

27/8/19

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

2hrs

Jon, Nick and Dave dug this week, 19 buckets each and we sent in 5 extras to make a random 62! Still going forward and currently ignoring and going over the boulders in the floor. Estelle was late getting into the dig because of waiting for Will who didn’t make it in the end and Mike was late as he was getting back from Pembrokeshire.

20/8/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Chris Duberry, Joan Goddard

2hrs

Mike dug first and filled 19 and then Joan filled 19 buckets too with a bit of help from Mike. Jon came down and filled the last 19 before we headed to the pub. Bottom skip starting to look really quite tired.

13/8/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Chris Duberry

2hrs

James went in first, Chris turned up for the first time and brought 2 new tubs with him, so we’re now having to learn the 19x table. After James had filled 19, Chris took his turn and filled 19, then Estelle, then bonus 15 buckets and Dave got to dig too as we were motoring and it wasn’t yet pub ‘o’ clock! The ceiling seems to be coming down a bit on both left, right and in front. The passage on the right resembles the same red ledge as further up passage. There are some quite large boulders in the floor that could do with excavation and removal as it is possible we should be going down. Still a lot more clay to remove though to see what is going on more, but the chamber is getting quite a reasonable size now. Water levels hadn’t been affected by the recent heavy rains.

7/8/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Dave Walker, Jonathan Riley

1 ¾hours

Despite a late start and only 4, we were pretty efficient in getting 51 skips out with Jon, Dave and Estelle digging tonight. Still going forward, although looks like the roof is coming down a bit, but the floor full of boulders still needs digging.

30/7/19

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

2hrs

James went in first to dig and discovered the dig had been self digging again and some rocks and a lot of mud had come down - last time he dug first he had to deal with a self dig too! He filled 17 buckets quite quickly and Mike decanted some into an 18th as he was overfilling, plus a few rocks came up... Mike then took over digging and also quite quickly filled his 17 buckets. As we always like to give guest diggers an opportunity to dig, we sent Dave King to the end to see our progress and be the 3rd digger of the night - he filled his 17 and as we were running early, we sent down bonus extras, so he got an extra 8 to fill! total 60 buckets and several loads of rocks. The heavy rain hadn't really affected the end water levels.

23/7/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay, Neil Reaich, Chris Smart

2hrs

Jon and Dave had arrived first, so they headed down to the end to start digging, with Jon at the head digging the face mostly right and forward. There is a roof pendant, which may be a boulder, that is slowly being exposed on the left roof above us to keep an eye on. The ‘chamber’ is continuing to grow, but there is a reasonable puddle now in the floor making non-holey wellies essential! Chris and Neil headed down and Dave shuffled back a place and the rest of us manned the rest of the route. Stu followed down about 15minutes later and took over the top haul from Estelle so she was then focussing on emptying buckets. Chris swapped in as second digger and carried on digging more to the left and forward and did his 17 before the final swap around and Estelle filled the last 17 buckets. Mostly from the right/shelf bit. Quite a lot of false floor stal there and lots of yellow and red clay. Possibly worth our while trying to focus on going down a bit and seeing what the boulders in the floor are hiding, but there’s still quite a few weeks of easy digging around this and the boulders may well need chemical persuasion.

16/7/19

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

2hrs

Dave went in first and filled 17 buckets. Stu slowly descended to the end and then filled the next two rounds of buckets, so did 34 as he won’t be around soon for a few months post op. His view was that it may be worth working on down more through the boulders. Still loads of spoil to be removed from the area though. Puddle very little difference in height from last week.

9/7/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Stu Lindsay, Neil Reaich

2hrs

James went in first to dig, the roof had all come in from above, this wasn’t unexpected really as Estelle and Mike had intentionally been undermining this last time… All his 17 skips and also the first few of Neil’s were from the roof. Neil got to digging out the floor a bit on his 17, before Estelle did some digging at the left wall in front – there is a large boulder in there too which will need bringing down soon. At 51 skips, we emptied them all and headed to pub.

24/6/19

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

2.5hrs

Tight on numbers tonight as Jon ill and no-one else about. Despite little rain since last week, there was quite a lot of water in the puddle and dig so we set to clearing that first with the pump. Once cleared, Mike got on with digging, followed by James and then Estelle. All digging in the dig itself tonight, although mostly above into an aven as it all looks like it wants to slump on us! Suspect it will self-dig before next time again. 52 buckets removed plus a few rocks including some of the ones stashed from last week.

18-6-19

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

2hrs

Considerable amount of rain had fallen since last visit, so we needed to use the pump. Extended the pipe and electric cables so we could also pump the dig too as there was a couple of feet of water in there as well. Got the puddle as dry as we could and then proceed to spend the evening digging that out as it’s been on the to-do list and we’ve been putting it off… Dave and Chris went in first to dig, followed by Estelle and then Jon. The slurry in the puddle is almost gone now and grill removed for the moment. Hopefully next week we can get back into the dig and try and clear some in there. About 60 buckets removed plus some rock moved to top.

12/6/19

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

2hrs

After quite a bit of heavy rain, there was an expectation we may have to pump – Estelle popped down to the end while the others were getting ready and found that the dig itself was under about 18” of water, which appears to be coming in from the aven above it, but the ‘puddle’ had only risen very slightly. The dig looked like it was going to be easy to bale, so went out to send first diggers down! Jon and Stu on surface and bagging happened too. James dug first and between him and Mike they took out 7 buckets of water from the dig to the hole in the floor up passage. James then dug from the end and it was hard going as a lot of that white nougat type stuff, but he managed to remove a large boulder which was passed up passage a bit for breaking up, which was done during the session by Dave and Estelle. Mike dug next and he decided not to dig in the dig, but to help get rid of the sediment and floor in the puddle which really needs us to do whilst it’s drier, particularly now we know the dig will fill up with water rather than the puddle… (although this raises another issue, while we’ve plenty of electric cable to get to the dig with the pump, we will need to get an extension on the blue water pipe as bringing it in a further approx. 7-8m will bring the end too close to the top of the shaft.) 

Mike removed 17 buckets and then swapped with Dave who continued filling from the puddle area – he got extras as digging was quick and it wasn’t quite pub time! 56 buckets total of spoil plus a few skips of rocks.

4/6/19

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

2hrs

Estelle dug first, there had been a slump over the last week from the roof to the right, so the first few buckets came from that before she started digging. Also the puddle side is drying out so on each person’s shift, the bucket carrier person ended up filling or topping up a sneaky few. Mike dug next followed by Dave. All filled 17 buckets – we worked hard spread out so we could get everything to the surface and as the 8:45 alarm hadn’t gone off, once 51 filled, we sent another 9 buckets down to fill with slop from the puddle! Disgusting stuff, like thick chocolate sauce – hard to fill the buckets and hard to empty and clean them… We probably need to aim to do circa 10 buckets of this per week to get rid of this sediment before the winter! Next week’s digging moved to Wednesday down to MCR meeting.

28/5/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Dave Walker, Alex Gee, Jonathan Riley, Stu Lindsay

2hrs

Mostly able to do the entire spoil run to surface today with 6 of us, although hard work. Used the opportunity to get rid of a lot of rocks that had been stacked in the system and about 20 skips full of them were removed. Stu started building a wall behind where the exit haul is that should help protect the hauler eventually and give a bit more spoil dumping space! Dave dug first, followed by Alex and then James. All filled 17 skips each and were emptied with no bagging. End is continuing to look different with boulders held together with spoil and the white nougat type stuff, which is really hard to remove but we appear to be digging ourselves a chamber now! The puddle is drying out a bit and the blancmange consistency looks like it might be possible to clean some of it out soon…

21/5/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley (late down to train delay from London), Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker

2hrs

Hard work with 4 to start, increasing to 5 about half hour after we started. Having to stage it, so only gives the opportunity for 3 people to fill the 17 buckets each. Estelle went in first as hadn’t seen it for a few weeks, was very impressed as to how much progress had been made. It’s widening out and they’ve gone down in the floor more. Lots of big boulders in floor, but passage is quite sizable and almost made a chamber at the end now – definitely feels like it is changing character. Jon went in next followed by Mike and then we went to the pub.

30/4/19 and 7/5/19 and 14/5/19 - from Mike M

14/5/19 Mike Moxon, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay. 3 diggers, 51 buckets removed.

7/5/19 Mike Moxon, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker
Decided it was still too damp to clear the silt, so another 51 tubs, plus some big rocks came out of the end, which has changed direction (angling off to the left & may have left Kevin's property, although it's too early to see if it's just stepping across). A small amount of seepage was collecting at the end & it did rain Wednesday.

30/4/19

Previous week 5O tubs worth came out, as one empty bucket escaped down the other dig before the last haul. The puddle was also emptied of most of it's water into the halfway slot (which hadn't completely drained by this week). 

23/4/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker 2hrs pumped tonight, not risen much since last week and not enough to invade the dig which Dave had lowered a bit last week into boulders in the floor. While pumping was progressing, Estelle started digging - carried on a bit down, but there are quite a few large boulders in the floor at the moment. We do need to clear more out from the floor, but it's still progressing well by digging the wall of mud/clay/rock in front of us, so will see how the water levels go on the puddle. After Estelle did her 17 buckets, Dave went in next and then Jon for 17 each, then the pub called! Have left the pump in situ, but removed the pipe from it so the sediment doesn't settle in the pipe. Found a dead baby bunny under the buckets at the start. Also noted that there seems to be some erosion of the mud/rock hedge side, we need to keep an eye on this as it may decide to come down...

16/4/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Stu Lindsay (although Stu didn't dig, just brought cable over) 2hrs Stu brought back the pump from clean and looking at cabling and we also inserted the armoured cable in from the mains socket at the top to as far as it would go - part way down 'steps' - via the top dig route. He is going to sort the middle cable ready for industrial connector, so couldn't pump this week. James set to digging, followed by Jon and then Dave. Usual 17 skips each and then we retired to the pub. Dave was digging down in a floor a bit - risky if the water rises much...!

9/4/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Stu Lindsay, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker, Pat Hillier, Olivia Gentile

2.5hrs

Estelle went in first to photograph and dig – the boulders had been satisfactorily reduced to manageable sizes and a lot of gravel! Dave, Pat, Mike and Liv all went in and had a session and James helped Liv at the end of her session. A massive 87 skips removed this week, think it’s a record! End looking easy digging still at the end and probably best part of a metre progress made.

8/4/19

Estelle Sandford, Stu Lindsay

2.5hrs

After ending last week with a couple of large boulders impeding digging a bit, Stu and Estelle went over to give them a bit of chemical persuasion – satisfactory thud as we left! Drilled and dealt with the two boulders and also a roof pendant. Also while we were there, we pumped the puddle dry as last week it was getting a bit bigger again. Seems to be seepage rather than anything to do with weather conditions though.

Stu took the pump away to clean and also change the connector for industrial type one to go with the heavy duty cable we have to be fitted.

2/4/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Dave Walker, Jonathan Riley, Pat Hillier, Harry Page

2.5hrs

Dave started off digging, there are 2 prominent boulders in the middle so having to dig around them. The water levels had risen a bit in the puddle making it quite mucky near the dig face. 10 buckets each going on tonight, so once Dave had done his, Estelle took over. The roof on the left appears to be getting lower by the 2 boulders the deeper we go, suspect we need to seriously look at digging down. After Estelle, Mike, then Harry then Pat all had a turn. Estelle took photos at the end and the right side roof is also lowering. The top boulder does move a little when smacked with a hammer and a bit did fall off, but both look like they need chemical persuasion. We also need to look at building some sort of bund so we can retain the puddle and start looking to dig down without it coming to join us. All looks interesting at the end as the passage is widening, but lots of big boulders.

26/3/19 from Mike Moxon

Naomi turned up again, with her own trowel! So Jon dug first filling 16 tubs whilst Dave tried to break up the boulder, then we doubled shifted them back to Stuart hauling at the entrance. Mike & Naomi filled the next 16 - repeat procedure & Dave finished the night off to total 48. Some big blocks to reduce & remove when we've freed them up. Then all except Naomi retired to the pub.

18/3/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon (back for first time after eye operation), Stu Lindsay, Dave Walker, Naomi Brazier

2.5hrs

set up the pump as the water was fairly high (probably a good 18”-2ft above the floor at deepest part) and left it going while we did other stuff. Raised the ladder up about 3 rungs and then went back to looking at the water, it had dropped by about 6" by then which was starting to expose a couple of large boulders by the dig. Another 15mins and we were just about able to dig but just before it got to that point, Estelle removed the boulders and passed them back to Dave to break up/get rid of. Got about an hours worth of digging, Estelle first, then Dave then Naomi. Filling bags and also rescued mating toads from the dig and put in the pond! It's toad rescue time of year again... 

5/3/19

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

2hrs

Dropped the number of buckets each to 15! 17 last week was too hard… Stu again opted to haul and part fill sacks, while the rest of us took it in turns to dig. The end is now about 1.5m beyond the current end of the puddle area and having removed a couple of large rocks, is mostly back to mud/clay but with more large rocks starting to emerge again. The passage seems to be sort of heading slightly left with the right side closing in a bit. Hoping that the forecast rains don’t fill it up too much, suspect next session will be pumping. Also next session the ladder needs raising. 2 frogs and 1 toad rescued from spoil heap and deposited in the pond.

26/2/19

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

2hrs

Stu didn’t feel up to digging, he just wanted to haul on surface and was also helping by putting the first couple of buckets in the bags so we could then finish topping them up. The rest of us took it in turns to fill the 17 skips we appear to have in circulation at the moment. Mike is out of commission after an eye operation so being stuck with only 5 of us is a bit of a killer to get to surface and all positions are hard work, but I guess a damned good workout! The puddle was about the same level as last week, digging is still heading forwards and we’re having to keep the floor level above puddle height, but it’s still about 3ft or so high. Boulder in the middle that looks like it will come out next week. Filling bags as we need to raise the ladder again soon and also build up the wall around our hauling spot. 1^st frog of the season rescued and returned to pond.

19/2/19

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker

2hrs

16 skips each, having to stage it as low on numbers, but all worked hard and dig continues looking good and going forwards. The puddle didn’t need any pumping tonight, but is still there. We do need to try and dig down a bit but this obviously has the risk of bringing the puddle nearer the dig face, right hand wall is cutting across a bit and there are two quite large boulders to the left which will need to make friends with Dr Nobel at some point.

13/2/19

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

2hrs

Dig needed pumping tonight, so first 30mins or so was getting it to a point where it was possible to dig. Once drained enough, Dave got in there and started digging until he’d run out of buckets and around then the pump reached the maximum it could pump out. Jon and Mike followed and did the 16 skips each too, then it was pub time!

6/2/19 from Mike Moxon

Jon, Dave & I built a wall of sorts on the top step before retiring to the Hunters. The end pool had risen enough to cover far end of grill, but only just.

22/1/19

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

2hrs

Good session, although hard work with only 6 regulars now. Really could do with recruiting a couple more in order to make the work easier. We still did about 80 buckets of spoil though and bagged some of it on the surface to continue the wall building. Steady progress forwards, the passage has widened considerably and due to the ‘puddle’ we’re not going down as much at the moment, so not sure what depth we have, there is a large boulder to the left looking straight on which once all the spoil moved around is likely to need some Dr Nobel’s.  Little rain since the last session, so the pump wasn’t needed tonight.

15/1/19 from Mike Moxon

15th Jan - Jon, Dave & Stu did some cementing on the steps. I removed a couple of tubs worth of loose spoil from the end, cleared a tub of silt from the hole & widened the connection to upper passage.

8/1/19

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

2hrs

No pumping required, Mike had brought a metal grill to go over the hole and once we'd leveled the bottom end this proved to be very good for hauling and we only needed 2 people below the grill, one digging and one transporting/hauling, to get the skips hauled up. Therefore we were able to work to get everything out in one go. Mike dug first and then Jon, before Dave took over. Dave had proper dig fever and dug for the remainder of the evening. Just under 70 buckets hauled out and a few bags filled as well. The end is looking interesting - to the right is an alcove, which is full of mud and being cleared. To the left boulder stacked in mud. Down to the puddle, we are not digging fully down at the moment as we don't want the water to end up at the end. Hopefully the weather will hold and allow us to keep on digging.

6/1/19 - showing Tav and Nick the dig for Complete Caves book

Estelle Sandford, Robin Taviner, Nick Hawkes

2hrs

Tav visiting towards his work on Complete Caves and both wanted to take a look around in daylight. Showed them around all the smaller 7 holes before getting kitted and heading down the bigger 8th to show them the current dig and the higher series. Tav seemed quite impressed by what we had dug out and his comment was that 'he had been in a lot of sh*tholes in the past and this was definitely not a sh*thole'! Nick had quite a good look at the geology and all seems quite interesting. Noted that the end puddle had not increased at all since last week's digging so unlikely to need pumping before we dig on Tuesday, also hole in the floor hadn't drained. James Begley joined us as we were exiting the cave and we went and saw Kevin and the inside bones and geology before a coffee and chat.

Happy new year dig! 1/1/19

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

3.5hrs

Afternoon/early evening session. Used the pump again to get the end water levels to a point where we could dig the end, although the slurry in front of it is rather horrible and muddy… The metal ramp that Mike put in it has helped though so we don’t have to wallow in slurry. While the pump was doing it’s magic, we cleared the bang remains from the hole in the floor, removing a lot of rock scattered around and James dug out the hole to a point where it was sort of draining the little pool in the bottom. We had brought over some bits of wood/metalwork to aim to cover the hole so we can drag the skip over the top, but that was a bit of a fail as it was a lot wider than we had estimated, so hoping mike can get another piece of metalwork like what is in the mud at the end. Once cleared, we then went to digging the end, with Mike having first shift, Estelle second and Jon third. The end is definitely changing, it’s a lot wider and some really big boulders on the left, but another aven/roof hole looks like it is on the right above us. Passage now about 6ft wide by about 3ft high, although suspect if we dug out the slurry, it would be deeper… James got some mud in his eye and had to give up to try and clean it out, so we emptied all the buckets and all adjourned to the Waldegrave.

12/12/18

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

2hrs

Kevin had got us a pump, so we set to the job of getting it set up, firstly rolling out a rather bendy and lively length of pipe from the dig to the surface, then feeding the electricity and pump to the water. Pumping then commenced and after about 20mins it was looking quite good and we could have done some digging. Looks like we now have a way of draining! In other news, the bang was so good it filled the hole with gravel, we’ve not touched clearing this year, also the steps look good from last week’s cementing efforts, we need to add more. J

4/12/18

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

2hrs

continued work on cementing the steps (and dug out the next one up) while Stu prepared another bang on the hole in the passage. Kevin is sorting us a pump to use which should be available by the weekend, so hopefully we can then drain the end, but we will need to put something over the hole we've created then! Bang went off well, hopefully plenty of rock to clear on next visit.

27/11/18

Estelle Sandford, Jonathan Riley, Dave Walker

2.5hrs

cleared the bang out of the hole and passageway and broke up some rocks and removed all from the cave apart from the larger rocks which can be used for wall building. The hole is quite impressive - about a metre deep and width of the passage and about 1/2m wide in the middle. Really awkward digging as have to reach to toes, can't bend properly!

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. 

5/12/17

 we had expected something much smaller, not a deep shaft and a fairly comfortable-sized passageVelma Aho, Mika Ahvenniemi, Jukka Erik Palm, Pasi Suominen, Richard Sore, Miri Simey, Duncan Simey, Dave Walker, Mike Moxon, Jonathan Riley

A visiting group of four Finns joined the dig. We were all very impressed by it, as to dig in. Each of us took turns to dig 6 buckets' worth, and some of us got so into it they didn't want to stop. Ferrying buckets was less fun, but greatly helped by the aerial tramway. All in all a surprisingly entertaining evening; we're happy we got to see the dig and make it that tiny bit bigger!

Words from Velma Aho

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14/11/17

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

2.5hrs

Brewery bags obtained – thanks to Miri for collecting and Jem for supplying.

A productive engineering evening. Put up bolts and line for washing/drying line for the bags on a zigzag, Stu repaired the aerial runway, 20 buckets were filled to fill the brewery bags to fill in the hole to move the ladder and the ladder was raised by about 2ft and retied into place. Hopefully numbers permitting, we can get back to digging with buckets again next week and leave the bags to wash/dry longer!