24th November 2012
Plans to go digging in Hallowe’en Rift today were cancelled due to adverse weather being forecast. It’s been a week of heavy rain and flooding, Cheddar Gorge has been closed to traffic because of the huge amount of debris that has washed out.
Decided to take walk down through Velvet Bottom to Longwood Valley and have a look at where the water has been sinking. All the way up through the valley it was obvious that there had been a lot of water flowing. At present the water has found it’s way into Longwood Valley Sink.
This once active site hasn’t seen any attention for a number of years – I bet there will be some interest now!
There is a lot of water disappearing into the depths below and it doesn’t seem to backing up too much.
Further up the valley is the Longwood Aust sink which has backed up and is overflowing.
In Velvet Bottom can be seen some remains of Mendip’s lead mining and smelting industry. The remains include buildings, pictured above and areas where industrial processes occurred, for example the buddles pictured below.
Buddles were used to wash the crushed ore to remove the impurities.