The entrance to Goatchurch Cavern with the recent rockfall on the left. Photo: Wayne Starsmore The wet winter of 2023/24 is probably the cause of a couple of rockfalls that Mendip cavers should be aware of. A small not insignificant landslide has occurred in the car park at Fairy Cave Quarry. On the South East…
The old stone barn on the edge of Priddy Green, Somerset, has been used by cavers for many decades, and by 2023 was in serious need of having some restoration work done. Peter Burgess reports. We are pleased to report the completion of the restoration work to Main’s Barn, Manor Farm, Priddy in Somerset. This…
The 2023 JRat Digging Award presentation will take place in the Long Room of the Hunter’s Lodge Inn, Priddy, Somerset on Saturday 25th November. The evening will kick off at 7.30 pm and will include talks and presentations from Mendip digging teams before the presentation of the award to the winning team. The winning dig,…
Access has been restored to a popular Mendip mine. The Council of Southern Caving Clubs (CSCC) has negotiated a new access agreement to Singing River Mine in Shipham, Somerset. The mine has not been accessible for a while, following a change of ownership as the new owners were anxious to avoid the possibility of access…
The Charterhouse Caving Co. Ltd. has gone paperless, exchanging the old paper permits for new electronic ones. And they’re free. Since the Dawn of Time (the early 1950s), access to caves in the Charterhouse area of Mendip, including GB Cave and Longwood Swallet, has been managed by cavers for cavers on behalf of successive landowners….
The Mendip Cave Registry and archive (MCRA) is pleased to announce that the third volume of Somerset Underground will be officially launched at the Hunters’ Lodge Inn, Priddy, Somerset, on December 10th 2022, starting at around 7.30pm. This is the third in a series of impeccably researched guides written by Rob Taviner to the caves…
The Fairy Cave Quarry management team have asked us to post the following:
Reigate has a brand new tunnel, thanks to the efforts of High Peak Geotechnical Ltd., acting on instruction from the Wealden Cave and Mine Society (WCMS). WCMS opens three caves within the centre of Reigate, Surrey, for public tours, under licence from Reigate and Banstead Borough Council. One of the three caves is an abandoned…
The 2021 JRat Digging Award presentation will take place in the Long Room of the Hunter’s Lodge Inn on Saturday 20th November. The evening will kick off at 7.30 pm and will include talks and presentations from Mendip digging teams before the presentation of the award to the winning team. If anybody does win, that…
ATLAS (the Association of Thrupe Lane Advanced Speleologists) are planning a maintenance session at Thrupe Lane Swallet and are keen to get some help. You can also have a barbecue and catch up with friends as well!
The following information has been provided by the Council of Southern Caving Clubs regarding access to Singing River Mine on Mendip.
The following note has been received from Dave King of ATLAS (the Association of Thrupe Lane Advanced Speleologists) “Following concerns and requests from local residents who have young children a CSCC padlock will be fitted to the entrance gate of Thrupe Lane Swallet. This will be fitted during the week commencing 14th June. Note that…
, If you want to know why a couple of Aussie cavers have had two new species of cave spider named after them get your mitts on the new issue of Descent, which brings you caving news from around the world. Descent 280 should now have reached you by now, but if not, it’s time…
Following the earlier report of a rockfall in the area of the Waterfall Climb in G.B. Cavern, Mendip, the following information has been received from Charterhouse Caving Company Ltd. Following the rockfall notified and publicised in early February, a further inspection trip was scheduled for 6 April, following the relaxation of covid restrictions. On 5th…
A rockfall has been reported in GB near the waterfall climb in Main Chamber. There has been a recent fall of mud, gravel and smallish boulders on the left (when viewed facing downstream) of the waterfall climb, near the bottom of Main Chamber. The wall above the last part of the climb (the big steps)…
Descent 277 is now here. It’s yet another great issue from the Descent team with interesting and exciting content, including some great exploration stories. There is so much to tell that this issue has eight extra pages! We start with Newsdesk where, of course Covid-19 gets a mention or two. Probably the most useful is…
The Wells and Mendip Museum has a long and fruitful relationship with the caving community. The late Herbert E Balch, arguably Mendip’s most famous original cave researcher, was the museum’s founder, and curator for many years. The museum houses much highly valuable archaeological material, recovered from caves in the region, and currently houses a long-term…
Two reports of instability in caves have reached us. Dave King has sent the following message re Hobnail Hole. “Hobnail Hole is temporarily closed due to a very unstable boulder in Black Pot. Please do not use Hobnail hole as a route into or out of Butts’ Chamber in Thrupe Lane Swallet until further notice.”…
The Mendip Cave Registry and Archive (MCRA) are pleased to announce the launch of Volume 1 of ‘Somerset Underground’, at the Hunters’ Lodge Inn at 8 p.m. on Saturday 7th March. Costing a rock-bottom bargain price of just £10, Volume 1 comprises 275 pages and contains details of more than 750 natural caves, sea…
New samples taken for DNA analysis from human bone from Aveline’s Hole by Natural History Museum researchers have thrown up surprising results. Graham Mullan reports on their findings. Aveline’s Hole, Burrington Combe, Mendip, contained the largest assemblage of Mesolithic human remains yet found anywhere in Britain. The cave was excavated in the 1920s by the…
A dig in Bleadon Cavern on Mendip has revealed more pieces to a mysterious puzzle … In 1833, a survey was carried out of Bleadon Cavern by John Heel but was, in all likelihood, drawn up by William Beard who had been investigating the area from 1828. This survey was first mentioned in more recent…
The tenth J’Rat digging award has gone north of the border – for the third time in ten years. The 2018 winning entry was Uamh nan Clachan Dubhan (the Cave of the Black Rock) in Sutherland, with a total surveyed length of 151.2m. It was handed over on Saturday 24th November at The Hunter’s Lodge which…
31st August 2018 is the tenth anniversary of Tony Jarratt’s death and we would like to calculate how much new cave passage has been found in Mendip and in Scotland in the past ten years. If you have found anything during the ten-year period from 31st August 2008 until 31st August 2018 (however small and insignificant…
Andy and Antonia have been making films for some time now, mostly about caves and caving. Many of their previous productions can be found on their You Tube channel but Tales from Cuthbert’s is their most substantial film yet. St Cuthbert’s Swallet, Priddy, Somerset is a beautiful and complex cave deserving of a great film…
Paul Dold’s death last year in a diving accident in Cornwall shocked his many friends in a way only the unexpected death of someone with such a huge appetite for life can. A Justgiving campaign set up in Paul’s memory raised over £7,000 for Horsham District Scouts, Cornwall Air Ambulance and cave rescue, with over…
When someone new to caving starts to make enquiries about how to get involved, and what is the best way to gain some experience, one of the more common responses is to suggest joining a club. That way, the helpful respondent states, you can learn how to cave in a structured environment and with more experienced…
Cheddar Gorge has now reopened to traffic – just days after the road was badly damaged by severe weather and flooding. The B3135 through the Gorge was first closed on Sunday afternoon when water, mud and rock began to pour off neighbouring land, turning the road into a river and making it unsafe for vehicles….
Back in the winter of 2012/13 Cheddar Gorge flooded, damaging the road, and had to be closed for several months, until it dried out and the road could be repaired. In order to help prevent further events like that, cavers from the Charterhouse Caving Company Ltd worked in conjunction with the landowners, Somerset Wildlife Trust…
The eighth annual J-Rat Digging Award winner was announced last night (19th November) at Priddy Village Hall during a joint celebration with the Mendip Cave Rescue, whose 80th anniversary falls this year. The Award is made annually in remembrance of Tony (J-Rat) Jarrett and is presented to the team, from Mendip or from Scotland, who…
It had never really occurred to me that caving instruction could be so enjoyable and simple to arrange. In the summer of 2016, I attended a meeting of the Council of Southern Caving Clubs, to represent my club, the Wealden Cave and Mine Society. This is a very rare event for the club – the…
High carbon dioxide levels are currently reported in some Mendip caves. Manor Farm Swallet, Swildons Hole and G.B. Cavern are three popular examples. Other caves where this is a regular problem are White Pit, Cuckoo Cleaves and Tynings Barrow Swallet. On a visit to Swildons Hole and G.B. Cavern on the weekend of 24th and…
We’re just a month away from the start of the EuroSpeleo 2016 event, “Caves and Caving in the Mendip Hills”, and we’re really looking forward to welcoming delegates/cavers on 6th August at the Open Day at the Wessex Cave Club, Priddy, Somerset. We’ve added a simple schedule of events, featured caves, local info and more…
Si Flower and Andrew Atkinson of UBSS have been making progress following the stream in Upper Flood Swallet. The pair, with occasional assistance from John Bennetts (UBSS) and Rob Adams (BEC), began work at a point known as “Terminal 3” where a slightly too tight rift had previously failed to yield to attempts at capping…
A report has just been received by Darkness Below of deliberate vandalism to Hunters Lodge Inn Sink on Mendip. We are sad to report that Hunters Lodge Inn Sink will be closed for at least a month while we attempt to repair, clean up and re-tape after what appears to be some deliberate vandalism to…
Darkness Below has received a report on the recent Southern CHECC 2016, held in the Mendips on the 4th-6th of March. Firstly, a massive thank you to everyone involved in the organisation of this event. A special thank you to Hellie for providing the food, to the training and workshop coordinator Stu Alldred, and to…
In January, Darkness Below reported that work had started on a new dig called Tankard Shaft, an undocumented mine shaft, tantalisingly close to Tankard Hole, itself a promising dig abandoned in the 1950’s. The dig team is happy to report that after a significant amount of shaft stabilisation work, they have broken into a complex series…
Special calcite crystals that form when water freezes to ice in a cave have been discovered in Wookey Hole. Now the researchers would like your help to know if they exist elsewhere in the UK. During September, 2015, Tom Chapman, Robbie Shone and Gina Moseley visited both the new show cave extensions in Wookey Hole…
Since the completion of the show-cave tunnel to Chamber 20 in Wookey, last year, a number of groups have been digging and exploring in various nooks and crannies that had never been properly pushed by the divers. This work has now borne its first fruits with the discovery of an overland (dry) route to Edmund’s…
An enthusiastic team of cavers, has been given permission to investigate a mine shaft that opened up in a field just east of the Hunters’ Lodge Inn, Priddy. This shaft is quite close to Tankard Hole, which was last investigated in the 1950s. The old dig was in a very large shakehole, and it reached…
We reported in November that St. Cuthbert’s Swallet, on Mendip had been closed due to instability in the entrance series Happily we can now report that the necessary remedial work has taken place and that the cave has now been reopened by the BEC. However, Hannah Bennett, the BEC’s Caving Secretary notes that: “… water…
Urgent Appeal by Mendip Cave Rescue to help fund the rescue efforts in the North.
Correspondent: Nick Harding. Axbridge Caving Group have broken into the long lost Upper Canada Cave in Hutton, near Western-super-Mare. The discovery of Upper Canada Cave came about during the quest for the lost cave of Hutton visited by Alexander Catcott in the 18th century. The discovery of masses of bones helped Catcott with his book “A Treatise…
Congratulations to the Soggy Bottom Digging Team for their magnificent effort in Home Close Hole during the past year. They are worthy winners of the 7th Annual J-Rat digging award, for the most cave found – and surveyed – in the last year in Somerset or in Scotland. Their finds for the year totalled 309.21…
Four years after the rock falls that not only radically altered the 3rd pitch but also blocked the way on to the 4th and 5th pitches and the bottom of the cave, Rhino Rift has now been completely reopened. Chris Binding and Andrew Atkinson, who had previously re-bolted the damaged pitches have now cleared the…
Due to instability in the entrance series St Cuthbert’s has been closed until work to fix the problem has been carried out. The BEC committee have taken the decision, which they say they have not taken lightly. It is envisaged that the cave will be open again by Christmas. We’ll post more details as we get them….
