3rd February 2016: with Dave Turner, et al.
Continuing to widen the rift at the present end of the North Pot. After the last session to ease the passage of the bucket, a return to forward, and hopefully, downwards progress. A loud and satisfying conclusion to the evening!
31st January 2016: Walking with Roz and Buster. Stormy weather so we decided to go where there was more shelter to be found and a walk around Rowberrow woods. There are forestry operations being carried out at the moment so a bit mucky underfoot in places. There is something about freshly felled and cut wood on the hillside, reminds me of being in the Alps where the sound of timber being cut echoed across the valleys and the aroma of cut pine was in the air. Not very many people about today which was also good. Some large swathes of trees have cleared opening up areas of the wood, unfortunately this has had the effect of exposing more trees to the strong winds and there are a lot of wind blown trees lying on the ground. I suppose these will eventually be cleared away. The shelter the trees give from the wind is noticeable as you pass from cleared hillside to were the trees are untouched – yet.
No walk around this area is complete without a visit to Rowberrow Cavern.
Rowberrow
Cavern, located at ST 4596 5802.
The cavern comprises a large archway in
Dolomitic Conglomerate that rapidly closes down with a side passage on the left. Archaeological
excavation by UBSS between 1921 and 1926 revealed Neolithic, Bronze Age, early
Iron Age and Romano-British habitation. The excavations have left their mark on the surrounding area where the large spoil heap although overgrown is still noticeable and a deep trench leads to the entrance chamber.
Human use of the cave spans a long period although probably not continuously so. The
Upper Palaeolithic appears to be represented by a few flint implements and possibly
some animal remains; the discovery of microliths and a core suggest some Mesolithic activity.
The Neolithic/Early Bronze Age was represented by a range of flint implements
including knives, as well as some Beaker potsherds. Iron Age finds included
pottery, a light blue bead, and traces of iron smelting. Romano-British finds
included potsherds, a number of coins (some possibly “British
imitations”, i.e. counterfeit), and a few pieces of copper alloy and of
lead. Some bone objects are suggested by Branigan and Dearne to be Iron Age,
while some human skeletal fragments are suggested to be pre-Roman. Some of the faunal assemblage may have been contemporary with the Iron Age and
Roman use of the cave (Simmonds, V.J. Overview of the archaeology of Mendip caves and karst. www.mendipgeoarch.net).
26th January 2016: with Tom Chapman, Nick Hawkes, Duncan Price and Paul Brock.
Good to see Brocker’s digging somewhere other than Home Close. Decided not to apply any rock engineering technology this evening and to concentrate on spoil removal instead. I had made-up a couple of skips yesterday afternoon ready for the clearing task. While TC and PB went for a quick tour around the rest of us headed down to the dig and set about getting a hauling system into place. There is only limited space available to stack spoil in so DP spent some time sorting this out while Nick and myself got the skip into action and started clearing the debris from the sloping passage floor. When TC and PB joined us the clearance progressed well and most of the loose stuff was tidied away, still a bit left for the next session to be cleared while I engineer the next constriction. A fine evenings work!
20th January 2016: with Dave Turner, John Hill and Eric Durnford.
Down to the North Pot, the plan to widen the rift to allow the bucket to fit through and make clearing an easier task. The requisite number of holes were drilled and filled – job done!
19th January 2016: with Nick and Tav. Tom took the Vanderplanks on a tour around the main passages off Chamber 20, etc.
Last weeks pop had done it’s job and the passage has been suitably widened although there is quite a lot of debris to be shifted. I passed some of the larger lumps back to Nick who, in turn handed them up to Tav at the top of the ladder. We really need to get some spoil removal system in place. Anyway while Nick and Tav continued to move rocks around I moved ahead to deal with the next constriction at the top of a c.4m drop, some widening here will enable better spoil removal. There was already quite a bit of rubble at the bottom of the drop and I suspect there will be even more when tonight’s task was completed. Still passage is dropping down quite sharply which is what we want.
17th January 2016: a damp, misty morning stroll with my wife Roz and my dog Buster. Walked up Middle Down Drove to the gate leading into Middle Down Reserve.
There is a line of boundary stones(?) alongside the track into Middle Down Reserve. We walked across the reserve towards Cheddar Head to pick up the track to Totty Pot.
Totty Pot got its name when the only digging implement Chris Hawkes, the finder of this cave in the 1960’s, could lay his hands on was his daughters potty. His daughter couldn’t pronounce the word ‘potty’ and would say ‘totty’ instead.
The cave is located about 5km east of Cheddar, on the plateau that forms the top of Mendip, at approx. 245m OD, where the covered entrance shaft is about 4m deep and 0.75m width with short passages leading east and west at the bottom.
WCC dug into
the cave in 1961 for speleological reasons this resulted in the loss of a
number of artefacts during the early exploration. WCC went on to carry out an
archaeological dig in Mesolithic and later deposits in 1964. Further excavation by the University of Bristol Spelaeological
Society around the entrance area in 1998 suggests that there was no human
occupation evidence and the flint debitage is likely to have been the result of
re-sharpening hunting tools, and the finished tools being hunting losses. The assemblage of human and animal bone, includes both
wild and domestic species, as well as a small microlithic flint assemblage, a
barbed and tanged arrowhead, along with sherds of Beaker and Early to Middle
Bronze Age pottery. A radiocarbon date indicates at least one Mesolithic human,
dating to 7450→7050 cal BC, further AMS dating confirms the Mesolithic date for
the same individual, however five other individuals date to the Neolithic
spanning much of the period ranging from 3630-3370 cal BC to 3340-3000 cal BC
(Ref: Simmonds, V.J. An overview of the archaeology of Mendip caves and karst. Online at Mendip cave archaeology – www.mendipgeoarch.net).
By the track this recently cleared out dew pond.
13th January 2016: with the usual suspects including Dave Turner.
5th cave trip in as many days!
I had intended to continue the widening of the rift in North Pot but ended up continuing to engineer the drill platform in the South Pot. Somehow managed to break two drill bits – glad they weren’t mine – possibly due to flaws in the limestone. The carpet used to dampen fly rock is beginning to look a bit tattered now but it still seems to work. All went with a satisfying conclusion. Next week the North Pot…
12th January 2016: with Nick Hawkes, later joined by Duncan Price. Tav and the ATLAS team (part 2) went on a tour of the main passages off Chamber 20. Tom was kept busy dismantling the Christmas decorations.
Last weeks effort had the desired effect and passage along the rift was much easier. There is quite a bit of debris that requires shifting so a team will need to be organised. At the next narrowing of the rift some more rock engineering technology was applied and hopefully passage will again be more comfortable.
With the drop in temperatures the draught was good this evening.
10th January 2016: with Nick Hawkes, Pete Hellier and Tom Chapman. Surface team were Tony Audsley and Chris Batstone.
Still too wet to place receptors, TA had been over to Tor Hole yesterday and that was taking an awful lot of water.
We decided to go for it and see what the conditions were like underground. The pitch was damp but not overly so. There was some evidence in the crawl that there had been some increased flow but the connection seemed no wetter than usual. At Wigs Hall there doesn’t appear to be a doubled line down so there might be some climbing to do there. Went on down to the Sump 7 bypass where a frog was seen on the gravel bank before it jumped into the sump-pool. Then up into the Generation Game and down to Vindication Streamway and on to the aqueous Slime Rift. At the present end of the cave we spent an hour or so moving rocks around trying to manufacture an easier route through the choke before deciding to make our way back out the cave. On the return Slime Rift seemed particularly wet especially the free climb out – energy sapping. A steady trip out, while me and Pete climbed the pitch Nick showed Tom around the rest of Home Close. Tea and snacks at the surface were very welcome and then to the Queen Vic to warm by the fire.
6th January 2016:
Trip to continue the rock engineering works in South Pot to create a drilling platform. All was good.
5th January 2016: With Tom Chapman and Duncan Price. Tav and the ATLAS team went on tour of the main passages.
The rock engineering applied last week had the required effect and access down through the slot was more comfortable. Before proceeding downwards a stainless steel hanger was inserted for a ladder and duly rigged. At the bottom of the slot I was pleasantly surprised by the continuing passage ahead but entry to this is somewhat constricted. The required engineering was carried out, kit and equipment packed away and we made our way out to meet some of the touring team who had come to see how we were getting on. Completed the task from the main passage and all was good. Made our way out of the cave to get changed and discuss prospects ahead at the Hunter’s Lodge Inn.
The arranged trip into Home Close Hole was binned due to adverse weather conditions – persistent rain and an excess of surface water. As part of the investigation of the source(s) of water flowing into Home Close [and Wigmore] we had planned to place activated charcoal receptors in the streams in various locations within the cave system as controls prior to testing.
The decision was made to check the water flowing into Tor Hole and Long Wrangle (pictured below) both possible sinks into the cave system. So set off with Nick Hawkes, Claire Cohen, Stuart MacManus, Pete Hellier and Tony Audsley to have a look. There was a lot of water flowing and it was probably not the best of conditions for the testing to take place, better to wait for more settled conditions as the hydrology project will require several consecutive weekends.
