Category: 2016

25th August 2016: with Nick and Peter ‘Snablet’ MacNab.

Snablet is over from New Zealand to visit for a week before heading onto China to meet up with Mad Phil Rowsell to go caving there, so I gave him a call at his parent’s to invite on this evening’s trip.

We headed up to the top of Chamber 20 and along to the high route in the rift to clear the bang I had placed a fortnight ago. As we intend to put this dig on hold for a while I wanted to retrieve the wire as well. Snablet and Nick cleared the debris while I sorted out the wire, a good pile of rock was shifted and there is a decent face to continue the widening process when we return in the future.

That job done we headed back up to Chamber 20 and on to the area where the UBSS had been looking some while ago and there we did some furtling about.

Before deciding to have a poke at a different site in the same area. We cleared a large pile of loose rock from the spot until we were left with a number of much larger boulders that will require capping to reduce them into more manageable pieces.

We then had reached a natural pause and it was time to depart. A steady trip out of the cave, got changed and headed up to the Hunter’s Lodge Inn.

A fine way to spend my 60th birthday – caving with my friends!

23rd August: Dolebury Camp. NGR ST 4500 5895

The hill fort is dated to the Iron Age and is bivallate on three sides but here on the south side there is a single rampart protected by the steep slope.

Heading up the eastern rampart. There are extensive views from the top of the rampart.

The original entrance is suggested to be from the west side. The ramparts define an interior c.20 acres. There are a number of pillow mounds (medieval rabbit warrens) that overlie a pre-Medieval field system.

22nd August 2016: Cheddar Gorge. NGR ST 475 543 [centre]

Perhaps one of the best known limestone karst features in the country with many excellent exposures of the Carboniferous Limestone, including Clifton Down Limestone, Cheddar Oolite, Cheddar Limestone, Burrington Oolite and Oxwich Head Limestone.

The cliffs have many valuable semi-natural habitats and are home to a wide range of plant species, many of them rare, for example the exclusive Cheddar Pink. There are, of course, lots of caves formed within the limestone during early interglacial periods.

Over the years the origins of Cheddar Gorge has been the subject of many debates and is now suggested to be a fine example of a gorge cut by a surface river, rather than a collapsed cavern. The gorge has long been left high and dry as the drainage went underground.

Although the gorge is dry now surface drainage occurred in the past particularly during the many cold periglacial periods over the last 1.2 million years. Meltwater floods during brief summers flowed on the surface carving out the gorge.

Reference:

Western Mendip: A walker’s guide to the geology and landscape of western Mendip. British Geological Survey, NERC 2008.

11th August 2016: with Roz Simmonds. Duncan Price and Tom Chapman were in the also cave surveying from Chambers 9 to 20.

Tried out the new camera – Olympus TG-4 – but only quick point and shoots, it really requires a dedicated photo trip to try it out properly.

At the dig with Roz we cleared enough of last weeks effort to enable more holes to be drilled. The rock is not good – there is too much calcite including flowstone, it’s fractured, there are voids and mud filled cracks. It was difficult to get 4 hole drilled and those weren’t brilliant, there were some failed attempts too. Charged the holes I had and the evenings task was completed from a safe distance.

Exited the cave and met up with DP and TC who were just leaving Chamber 9.

4th August 2016: with Tav (Duncan Price and Claire Cohen).

Tav and myself made our way quickly up to the high route along the rift that we had started to widen last week. Cleared the debris that had been created and drilled some more holes and charged ready to make some more work for the next session. Made our way along the traverse and didn’t have to wait too long for DP and Claire, who had been down the lower route to the sump to deliver some dive kit ready for the next push. Completed my task successfully and we all exited the cave.

3rd August 2016: Kingdown Unconformity. NGR ST 5007 5352.

Mercia Mudstone Group (Marginal Facies) – Conglomerate of Triassic Age approx. 200 to 251 million years ago overlies Oxwich Head Limestone Formation of Carboniferous Age approx. 326 to 335 million years ago. Scale = 1 metre.

28th July 2016: with Tav, Nick Hawkes and Matt Tuck.

After about a three month lay-off it was good to return to the explorations beyond Chamber 20. This was a relatively quick in and out trip to get things going.

We had followed the lead first pushed by divers, Tom Chapman and Keith Savory, and this had ended at another sump that Duncan Price is planning to dive in a few days time. The plan is to follow another potential lead at a higher level, unfortunately this is a little constricted, hence the purpose of this evening jaunt.

Drilling wasn’t good as there was a bit too much calcite to get through and some alterations were called for. Perseverance paid off, job done and a satisfying conclusion. We’ll see next trip how things worked.

As usual it was rather warm tonight and I was only wearing the lightest of caving gear, Matt, however suffered most in his nice warm fleece and heavy duty cordura oversuit.

To the Hunter’s for refreshments and debrief.

Haggs Brow Excavations, Lower Winskill, Yorkshire Dale National Park.

Just spent an enjoyable few days on this project at Lower Winskill in the Yorkshire Dales with a group of fine like minded individuals seeking to further their experience and knowledge of caves and environment in this area, me included. The attached pdf is a record of my personal account of proceedings.

It is hoped that this is an initial phase of a longer ongoing investigation of the Lower Winskill environs and could, perhaps, spread to other features within the wider landscape.

The pdf above provides some useful guidelines to the treatment of animal bones recovered during excavations. A whole lot of further information on cave archaeology can be found on the BCRA_Cave Archaeology Special Interest Group website.

9th May 2016: took a stroll from Blackrock Gate up to Longwood to admire the fine display of bluebells there.

28th April 2016: I’m out of action for a while following some surgery on a dodgy elbow. However, the quest off Chamber 20 continues and thanks go to Nick Hawkes for penning the latest instalment, as follows:

Duncan, Brockers, Sam, Nick and Gavin(Newman)

7pm start, with a trophy tourist / filmaker, Gavin who occupied himself trying to recreate photo scenes fom the past, identifying the precise locations from where the old shots had been captured.

Fortunately the rest of us had better things to do and quickly headed straight to the end. With the way remaining clear after last weeks efforts we all slid down through. Sam took up the task of heading forwards at the very base of the rift while the rest of us further cleaned out the ‘slut’ above. After a full session digging the muddy slut was much bigger with steps carved for ease of exit, meanwhile Sam had headed on headfirst to a slightly bigger area with a boulder blocking the way on….a long inclined rift was visible. Nick gave assistance and the boulder was removed. Sam was duly despatched to investigate the rift. He quickly reached a point near the end, perhaps 15 to 20m on, where the gently inclined rift turns sharply to a vertical inclined rift. Nick then came to look on beyond and it was quickly agreed that it was time for the pub and not wise to try and progress any more as it looked bloody tight.

It was significantly more knackering coming out than going in and it didnt help that Gavin was gleefully waiting to film and question us as we emerged from the dig….

This metalwork hoard, probably of bronze/copper alloy was recently uncovered on a site in North Somerset. It was block lifted by yours truly and, subsequently dispatched to the county FLO to be further examined and fully excavated at a later date, as yet a report has not been published. The hoard is likely to be classified as type ‘founders’ hoard’ as it appears to consist mostly of scrap metal and might have been an ‘economic deposit’ placed in the ground by artisans for safekeeping and never recovered.

The deposition of hoards is a phenomenon that occurs throughout the Middle and Late Bronze Age, thousands have been found across the British Isles. These hoards might be represented by a few objects, or there could be hundreds of pieces of metalwork in a range of forms that includes weapons, tools, ornamental items and scrap or broken metal.

23rd April 2016: In Harptree Combe ST 5618 5600.

Aqueduct for Bristol water supply, completed in 1851, the engineer was John Simpson.