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Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 11 April 2013

Hits: 6165

Report by Mike Annesley
Cavers: Mike Annesley (EPC), Geoff Lewis (non-EPC)

The last time I was in Bath visiting Geoff, about six months ago, I showed him my video footage of the Croesor-Rhosydd mine trip. He loved the video and every time I had spoken to him on the phone since then he’d reminded me about the video and how he’d love to do something similar one day. He had also told me that ages ago, his boss and him had more or less bottomed Goatchurch Cavern on an impromptu trip armed only with torches and candles, but that they had turned back before the “Drainpipe” and he was keen to return and finish it off. Since Selina and I were heading down that way to visit him over the bank holiday weekend, I bought myself a copy of Mendip Underground from Hitch ‘n Hike and started having a look at the possibilities for a nice introductory Mendip trip that didn’t involve any SRT, as Geoff had never done any ropework. It turns out that within a half hour drive of Bath there is a whole host of caves ranging from nice easy trips like Goatchurch to deadly tight and gnarly holes like Dallimores. Like many others before me, and being decidedly unoriginal, I decided to have a look at Swildon’s which offered a sporting streamway, a small ladder pitch, and a free-dive of sump-one if by that time we weren’t wet enough already.

We set off early after I’d phoned Bat Products to enquire as to whether the rainy looking sky would mean Swildon’s was a bad idea - they said that more water would only be a good thing, and also informed me that the Mud Sump (closed for some considerable time) had recently been re-opened if we fancied doing the round trip, though this was strictly not a trip suitable for novices (especially claustrophobic novices like Geoff!). We arrived in the quaint village of Priddy which seemed like a most unlikely caving venue after being used to your typical Derbyshire moorland terrain. There is an access fee of 50p each and the farmer has kindly provided a changing area in his barn which was a much more attractive proposition than scaring tourists with our dangly bits out on the village green. A ten-minute walk north through cow-fields brought us to the Swildon’s entrance blockhouse where the stream sinks into a shallow depression. The stream seemed very low indeed which was a little disappointing, but after stashing the car keys and having a quick slash, I dropped into the entrance hole that soon led into a bouldery chamber, where the obvious way on was a quick crawl in the streamway under some boulders. From here there appeared to be several routes, and I consulted the photocopied guidebook page that I’d brought in with me as to the best way on - the entrance series in Swildon’s comprises of many different routes that all end up at more or less the same place a little deeper into the cave. I had intended doing “The Long Dry Way” (aka “The Pretty Way”) but after getting bored of trying to decipher the guide and the fact that the water was very low anyway I decided to just follow my nose, and chose the most obvious way on which was a climb down into a rift to my right - I think in retrospect this was “The Short Dry Way” and leads to a bypass of the Forty Foot pot via a pleasant climb down a cascade. The Forty Foot Pot used to be the main route until the epic floods of 1968 washed away the false floor and opened the other routes below.

We soon entered the fine, roomy main streamway that is then followed through some great terrain down to the Twenty Foot Pot where I rigged a ladder and lifeline for Geoff and then abseiled down myself. This pot is P-bolted but the lower of the two bolts at the pitch head is very loose. From the bottom of this pot the streamway continues via many twists, turns and fun climbs down small pots above pools - all pretty easy but classic caving. Eventually we passed the climbs that lead up to Tratman’s Temple and the start of the Round Trip and entrances to the upper series and not too far beyond this after more pleasant cave the main streamway sumps into a gloomy pool at the free-diveable Sump One. The only other free-dive I’ve done is Lake Sump in Peak Cavern and I’d expected this one to be similar in nature, but I found it much more intimidating. Lake Sump is longer but you start from a nice deep pool in a roomy passage and the slight airspace allows communication with the other side… and of course, there’s a bypass if you don’t fancy it on the return journey. It also helped that I was with a load of people who’d done it before and could give encouragement and advice. Sump One in Swildon’s starts in a shallow pool and the dive line just seems to head for a tiny underwater slot at the end of the pool - it looks hideous and I was thinking “ho hum, if Geoff doesn’t want to do this I won’t be too upset”… Geoff was thinking the same thing, and was looking distinctly wild-eyed at this point, but anyway, I sploshed down into the freezing pool and stuck my legs through - I thought I could feel airspace right at the limit of my toes’ reach and Geoff also checked it out and came to the same conclusion. We were now both freezing from the water (I was in an furry / warmbac combo and Geoff was in a selection of thermals and an old flying suit) so it was decision time. I lay down on my front in the shallow water, held the line with my right hand, took a few deep breaths and plunged under. I felt strangely calm and pulled gently on the line, then lost it for a moment, then pulled on it again and felt myself glide first downwards to the low lip of the sump, and then felt myself rising up on the other side. By this time I was thinking “if I’m not in airspace by now I’m going to be a very unhappy boy” but then my head broke the surface and I sat up in a roomy water filled passage. After collecting my thoughts for a moment, I tugged on the line to signal to Geoff that all was ok, and after a few seconds, I felt the line go tight again, and a short while later his lamp started to loom up at me from the murky water. I grabbed his suit to let him know he was through and he sat up beside me - we looked at each other and started whooping like children, both very cold but very psyched. To give Geoff full credit, I think that if I’d have been asked to this on my first ever proper caving trip, I would have been heading back out to the entrance. In retrospect, it doesn’t really seem that bad, and the next time I’m there it will no doubt seem fine, but at the time the fear of the unknown and the seeming insanity of going underwater all added up to make this a formidable obstacle. I’ve since read that it was first passed in 1936 by J Sheppard using a home-made dry suit fed by a football inflator pump!

We were now in Swildon’s Two, and the now rather subdued streamway led through a deep pool to an easy duck, to a point where we could stand and get out of the water again. Amusingly, there was a “liberated” road-sign saying “Wookey Hole 1.5 miles, avoiding town centre” (the stream does indeed re-appear in Wookey Hole after about 1.5 miles!) and also an ironing board, presumably courtesy of the Extreme Ironing crew. The streamway now opened up again to huge dimensions and we followed pleasant walking passage past another, similar road-sign next to a divers-only sump and a long ramp with a handline, which was the way down from the far end of the Short Round Trip (other round trips go deeper into the streamway but these are hard and serious trips). Below here the streamway reduces to easy ducks and a few crawls in ever deepening water until Sump Two is reached. Sump Two is eight metres long and leads to airbells where you can’t get out of the water and are immediately faced with the even more serious Sump Three which is about 10 metres long and also quite deep. These sumps are free-divable but only by the very experienced, and I’ve read of somebody nearly dying when they got caught up in Sump Three. The usual route to get beyond this point is now to do one of the longer round-trips thus avoiding these sumps. In fact, it is possible to free-dive Swildon’s as far as Sump Nine but I must say that this must be one of the most serious trips around in terms of rescuing an injured caver. Divers are still currently trying to push the far limits of the cave at Sump Twelve and rumour has it that there has been some recent success. As an aside, I spoke to another caver back on Priddy green after we’d exited the cave who told me that people would often carry small bottles for many of the sumps, rather than just hold their breath.

Since we were now very cold we decided to head back into Swildon’s One, and so sploshed back to Sump One, and once again went for a thorough soaking. The sump seemed much easier in reverse, as it was all uphill and we knew we were heading for a big chamber. I was quite keen to have a look at the start of the Round Trip but was worried that Geoff wasn’t really warming back up and was also starting to look a bit tired, so we made our way back up the streamway, which was even more fun in the uphill direction. It didn’t take long to get back out as this time we knew the way, and in about forty-five minutes we were back at the surface and trudging over the fields past bemused tourists to reach the sanctuary of warm clothes and the car heater.

All in all a really good trip and a great introduction for Geoff who couldn’t stop talking about it for the rest of the weekend! Swildon’s is a fine cave that far exceeded my expectations. The main streamway would be superb in higher water (although it’s worth noting the entrance could become impassable), and the other parts of the cave offer trips that would range from fairly moderate to extremely serious in nature. The cave has also been linked to Priddy Green Sink via a tight and difficult connection.

Details

Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 11 April 2013

Hits: 4796

Report by Jim Thompson
Cavers: Mike Annesley (EPC), Jim Thompson (EPC)

I thought it was going to be another one of those nights when Mike called me at the office. ‘Do you really want to go caving tonight?’ You see there are just some days when all I want to do after a long day staring at reports and documents, all I really want to do is sit down and sink a quantity of ale to blast away the stresses and mundanity of the day past. Other nights, I can’t get out of the office fast enough and feel like an amphetamine crazed dog with two dicks, if you can imagine that. I think I’d rather not now I’ve mentioned it! Anyway, today was not a two dick day and I felt like sh*te, and was having a sh*te week so I was expecting yet another night leaving Crumble and Beza for another day and feeling guilty for not going underground, thus failing to maintain my 2 night a week average. I was starting to get annoyed with myself, it seemed that the last 3 times I’d been intent on bottoming Nettle, and made arrangements days in advance, and sorted the ropes and even divided up the gear for quicker rigging, I’d somehow not made it. Still, if Mike wasn’t feeling like caving, I wasn’t about to argue. When Mike phoned later I found myself feeling really motivated again, so we quickly agreed that we should just get on with it. An early start was thwarted as I’d forgotten Mike’s wellies, which I’d borrowed the week before, but eventually, we reached the lay-by and were soon walking up the hill toward the pothole.

As Mike had rigged the entrance pitches the previous week, we agreed that I would take that role, and he would continue to the bottom of Beza shaft, from where I would have the unenviable task of derigging. I soon found my feet on the rope, metaphorically speaking, and in no time at all I was laying upside down in the flats, looking up at the P-bolt which protects the step across the pitch head of the Grand Canyon. On the top of the Bottle pitch, I had been disappointed to see a pair of bright shiny Petzl hangers, loose on their threaded bolts which protruded a long way. I wondered why anyone had bothered; particularly as the rest of the pitch is fitted with discreet, functional P bolts. I noticed that there was a lot more water dripping than the previous visit, and it lent a more ‘alive’ atmosphere to the place. I was soon joined by Mike, and proceeded to rig the next Y hang and drop the short way into the boulder choke underneath which is the impressive Elizabeth shaft- Derbyshire’s deepest natural shaft. Mike took the lead at this point, and as I perched upon a boulder near the pitch head, I was appalled to see spent carbide dumped all over the place. It wasn’t just dumped in one place, or particularly discreetly; rather, it seemed to have been thrown up the walls, into crevices and in a huge pile next to me. I could hear Mike rattling tackle and scraping his way down the pitch, and peered over to see the faint glow of his lamp in the narrow rift beneath the boulder on which I sat, suddenly realising that I wasn’t in the safest position- should I slide off the boulder I would find myself dropping through a small hole and down the pitch itself! Fortunately I had my long cowstail clipped to the belay, so I rolled a fag and thought about other things. After a longer wait, I became a little impatient as I had started to feel cold, so was glad to hear Mike bellow ‘rope free!’ from the depths. I quickly got set up on the rope, checked my Stop, and set off downwards. Upon reaching the small hole, I realised that I would have been very unlucky indeed to fall through it- it was an awkward squeeze through, where I had a bit of difficulty squeezing the handle on the Stop, but eventually after a bit of grumbling, I found myself popping out into an impressive narrow rift which had water trickling down the flowstone covered walls. I continued past a couple of easy deviations, however there were still a couple of rub points at intervals which twanged disconcertingly on the rope. I reached the point where Mike sat on a small ledge across which the rope crossed, rigged off a spit in the centre. I wondered what a comparative pain in the arse it must have been when all the rigging had to be done using 8mm spits, which had to be attached by hand using a spanner. As Mike continued to the bottom of Beza shaft, I sat uncomfortably trying to avoid the cold dripping water, which occasionally ran down my neck. The manoeuvre across this ledge was a little awkward- it was necessary to climb over a constriction through which I couldn’t pass my toes, and as I slid head first towards the next pitch I was glad to be on the ropes! By the time I touched down, the character of the cave had changed. The rift continued down a loose slope - ‘The Shakes’, and I followed Mike to the bottom of the handline, starting to feel cold and wet by this time. At the bottom, a fairly large chamber opened out above us, and there were a couple of low openings through which I knew there were ways on- one, ‘The Sting’ forms the connection with the bottom of Elizabeth shaft, the other is the continuation into Red River passage and the awkward looking Dratsab, which when read backwards gives an indication of the nature of the crawl! Tonight though, we would be going no further. Neither of us wore a watch, but I had a feeling that we were a long way from home, had a long way back to climb and derig, so further exploration would have to wait till a longer day. In addition I had a feeling that we would be pushing it if we were to get to the pub in time, so I took no time in ushering Mike back off to surface whilst I sorted out the tackle bags ready for the derig.

Once the rope was free, I started quickly jugging upwards, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the return journey was in fact easier than the abseil. This was because I could bridge across the walls, use handholds and generally help myself out. The tackle bags were empty at this stage so there was nothing holding me back. The hole at the top of Crumble was also far easier to climb out of, and soon enough I was passing an empty bag to Mike and carrying on straight up the entrance pitch with 100 metres of rope hanging off me, not really noticing it apart from in the Narrows, where I had to kick the bag free of constrictions a couple of times. I began to sniff the fresh air near the top of the shaft, and knew I could relax a little, as I knew Mike was some way behind me, and I took the final few metres at a leisurely pace. Unfortunately, with not many more metres to go, I gave my already injured knee a slight knock on the wall. The pain was out of all proportion to the impact- I’ve whacked my head harder in the past and not really noticed. This time the agony rifled through my knee like a bullet, and I slumped onto the rope choking back the vomiting reflex it had induced. I made a mental note to see the physio about this, and dangled a few minutes longer whilst the pain subsided. I had to swap feet in my foot loop, as the injured knee had lost the ability to work, and eventually I resorted to free climbing the walls and sat a few moments on the ledge beneath the cap of the shaft.

I climbed out of the lid into the windy night and grabbed the phone- 11.30 pm, we’d missed the pub! Oh well, no point in worrying now as I still had to wait for Mike, so I rolled a fag and stood shivering in the breeze as the moisture sapped the warmth from me. It was nice to be out in the open again despite the chill, so I didn’t bother climbing back to shelter under the lid. After what seemed like an eternity as I shivered in the wind, Mike’s rattling got louder and he appeared at the pitch head. We packed the last bit of rope away and raced off down the hill, slipping and sliding on the wet mud full of sheep’s hoof prints. Back at the car, I was pleased to have finally got to bottom of Beza shaft without any fuss. We shook hands and congratulated each other on a job well done, and began the drive back to Sheffield as the car warmed up and the dark night slipped by.

Details

Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 11 April 2013

Hits: 4799

Report by Jim Thompson
Cavers: Bog (EPC), Pete Pollard (EPC), Nige Strong (EPC), Jim Thompson (EPC)

I’d decided it would be a good idea to get back down the lower series and have a decent look round, considering that I had been in Bagshawe about 30 times in the last 10 months, and only been in the Lower series once, when Stick showed Mike and I round on our first visit. I thought it would also be a good idea to have some background knowledge of the route before taking a couple of hot women down there in a few weeks time. Well, somebody’s got to do it!
It was to be Bog’s first time in the lower series, and I thought it would be a good opportunity for Pete to be introduced to Bagshawe too. Mr Strong made up the team, and I felt slightly relieved that someone else had turned up who would know the way round. Or not, as it turned out…..

We descended the steps down to the Dungeon, taking it slowly as I tried to show Pete all the bits of prettiness on the way down, the mined vein and the stemples in the roof, and we made a short detour into Calypso cave too. Upon reaching the Dungeon, Bog and Nige dropped the ladder down the pitch while I explained the morphology of the cave passage to Pete and told him about the dig. He looked unimpressed (about the dig not the cave)! At this point it may have been sensible to go down the ladder and check that the way out of the Dungeon was clear, but, eager to get caving we shot off back up the steps into Agony crawl. It’s strange how cave all seems straightforward and linear to me whenever I’m following someone. When I’d been here with Stick many months ago, I hadn’t paid any attention to the various possible directions in this low bedding. I squeezed on in the most likely looking direction, finding the going much tighter than I remembered it. At a little hole, I squeezed through and found myself wondering why lights had been fitted through here, away from the main cave passage. Hmm, actually, this was the main passage. Duh! I reversed the squeeze and Nige took the lead. We soon found ourselves dropping through the hole in the roof, the Hayloft, and we were finally in the Lower series at last. I knew that in order to reach the other exciting parts down here, the way on was to the right, so off we went, through Prospero’s cave, at one point stopping to admire the really metallic looking chert splattered all over the limestone. It isn’t really splattered, but looks like a load of metal melted amongst the rocks. We eventually reached another familiar sight- a big iron bar sticking out of the wall on the right. This was the entrance to Straw cave. I’m not sure how Straw cave got its name, probably something to do with farming I expect. The cave is a bit of a low crawl, decorated very nicely on the right hand side by a lot of straw stalactites and columns. From here, a climb down some calcited blocks leads down to a lake, and just beyond this a small stream flows in and away down the passage. We followed the stream, and entered a just lower than walking height, very straight phreatic tube. I think from looking at the survey that this may have been heading north, but I couldn’t be certain. Either way it ended in another pool of water. Nigel walked into this and nearly disappeared up to his neck!

It had become apparent by this time however, that we weren’t heading for the Dungeon. We headed back towards the phreatic tube, not really sure where we were or which was the way on to the Dungeon. We went round in circles, looking here and there, and following various prints in the mud and the polished flow and broken stal on the floor, to no avail. I took the leader’s role and decided we were going to retrace our steps back to Prospero’s cave because I had suddenly remembered, that the Dungeon was in the opposite direction to Straw cave! Feeling more confident now, I opted for the sporting route and went through the lake, having to go chest deep in the water, howling and panting with the cold. I thought we’d better find our way out now or we’ll be freezing! We passed a couple of features recalled from the way in, and appeared back next to the iron bar- right, now we were back on track. I headed straight off in the opposite direction to the one we had arrived in, finding a stooping sized, water-worn passage, the dark limestone being intersected by white bands. After some distance, the passage became muddy and gritty, and evidence of recent water flow showed on the mud’s surface. This then led to a steep bank of deep mud, which dropped into a scummy brown pool. Ah, the Dungeon! Sh*t! The water was up to the roof and not looking at all inviting. We should have gone down the ladder first! Oh well, off we went back up to Agony crawl, me going first through the hole in the roof as by this time Nigel’s lamp had failed. The crawl was just as enjoyable on the way out, and we were soon back in the main passage. We returned for the ladder, and Pete and I climbed down to see the water, up to the roof on this side too. When I bent to pick up the ladder at the top, my knee gave an almighty crack, which everyone thought was a rock or something, and I writhed in pain for a few seconds, before I’d realised there wasn’t any. In spite of this, I was feeling great after such an interesting trip, where we had managed to get a good look at a lot of the cave- it was probably a good thing that we’d been slightly disorientated for a while. I went at a run through the rest of the passage and stormed up the steps, not feeling knackered at all, which makes a nice change. We adjourned to the White Hart, where the beer was as welcome and refreshing as ever!