Wednesday 10th June 2026

Freya Bearn, Billy Evans, Ed Ford and Mike Waterworth.

There was a knock on the window around 3pm, two cavers were looking to borrow a dry bag so they can take a phone on their planned Short Round Trip as they suspected they'd need route guidance. I lent them a hard case and they went off on their trip. 30 minutes later I got a call "Billy has forgotten his undersuit, can we come digging with you instead?". And so the two person team had become a 4 person team, with Billy and Freya joining the digging trip.

Ed and I had been digging through the floor on Sunday with hand tools, a 2.5lb hammer and chisel being used to break through the thick calcite floor in Mad Hatter Hall to find the route the water coming into the chamber flows on to. This time we took in 2 hammer drills with chisel bits plus we ferried in a Daren Drum of sand. We all made it to the chamber with only a couple of small route issues from the two newbies (Freya was surprised to see me coming towards her as she'd done a loop and had somehow started climbing back towards the entrance!).

We quickly started breaking through the calcite with chisel bits, thinking we'd find a mud floor underneath it. Nearly 2ft later, we're still finding calcite! This floor, which covers the entire chamber, is ridiculously thick and has bested us and our tooling. So after 2.5 hours of digging and increasingly stale air we switched over to the TPC dig.

This proved to be a lot more fruitful as we dug down through the boulder pile, enlarging the ruckle hole down into the vadose trench. The walls were proving to be unstable and so we dug back until they were standing safely. The digging is easy, with a bucket and passing of rocks working well at the current depth. None of this has been calcited in so it's easy digging at present.

We added a single bolt hole above so it'd be possible to add a hauling rope in the future. The dig itself will shortly need shoring and more engineering to make safe and then backfilling the void to keep the shaft proportions.

Crawling back out with the drills and full kit made me appreciate leaving more tools in-situ for next time.

5 hours 8 minutes. Same again next week! Mike.

Sunday 7th June 2026

Ed Ford, Mike Kushy and Mike Waterworth.

MK met EF at the Wessex for 10am, where we loaded 4 scaffold poles, 2 Darren Drums of sand and 1 of cement. All of this was lowered down the entrance shaft and left in the old route in the tunnel. Done by 11am. MK then left for TempleTwin, meeting MW as he arrived to join EF. Mike K.

MW met EF at the car park after he'd already been down once, shuttling bags. We had a natter about the plan and decided to start off with Ed's Bet - the boulder ruckle directly below Cement Dig. We carried some additional metalwork and sand into the cave and quickly reached Ed's Bet where I hurriedly squirmed through some tight squeezes into the current end. From here there were a couple of obvious ways on, straight down or heading back towards the light connection but 2m lower. I started off with straight down and opened up a couple of new small chambers, seeing what looked like a water worn flat passage directly underneath the initial chamber. This also gave access looking back into the boulder ruckle. A number of human-sized voids around.
We needed a hammer to make further progress and so Ed went to TPC to pick one up. His voice got quieter, and then louder again.
"Mikey".
Hmm.
"Mikey"
Yeah?"
"I'm in Tea Party Chamber underneath the light connection. Shine your light around!"
I crawled over towards the noise and could easily see Ed's light. The third connection we've found through to this chamber! Nice to have ticked this off but It'd need a lot of work to make it safely navigable.

We decided instead to turn our attention to Mad Hatter Hall. The dig here is 12 inches of mud and then an unknown thickness of calcite. We started on either side of the cake formation before both switching over to the right hand side, taking it in turns to work through the calcite. This is proving to be extremely thick but is suspected to be hollow, or at least porous underneath. Our meagre tools of a 2.5lb hammer, crow bar and small chisel made slow progress through this and more industrious tools will be required next time!

Underground 11:15 - 15:00; MW.

Wednesday 3rd June 2026

Ed Ford and Stuart Jelliss. EF arrived a bit later than expected due to temporary traffic lights. SJ had just arrived, also later than expected. After unlocking the entrance we headed straight to Tea Party Chamber with two Darren Drums of sand (there's about half a Daren Drum's worth left in lockbox). We took a look at the scaffolding work, then headed to Mad Hatters Hall where we both took a dig, SJ to the left and EF to the right. SJ confirmed that the roof and floor meet with no obvious draught or way on. EF focused on the small trench at the end of the calcite sheet working left towards the middle of the wall. This was found to start widening and on closer inspection it looks like the sheet used to sit higher on the wall. Started excavating this gap and started finding sand rather than clay. The wall also starts undercutting at this point. There is a draught but this could be the hole which connects above. There was a steady drip of water coming in above the formation with no sign of it running in to either dig either side. Hammer drills to break calcite will be required next time.

We were both out by 20.45. EF headed to the Hunters'. Ed.

Tuesday 26th May 2026

Mike Kushy and Mike Wise. We headed into the cave at 1400 armed with 3x 6ft scaffold poles, 2x Daren Drums of sand and tools. Really hot day today, cool cave and the strongest draught in TPC. Once here we set about installing the scaffolding frame, which will help retain the chamber floor and allow us to dig down through the rocks. We opted for a triangle frame for now, with MK chiselling out a crack in the rock to get a lovely secure pocket for 1 end of the bar to sit in, with the diagonal bar sitting in a natural recess. This can be adapted later as necessary once we start removing material & things are a little more stable. Some stone work was cemented in to start the process of securing the couple of huge slabs at the head. All materials in the cave used up, bar 1/2 a bag of dust and a container of water, empty bags and drums brought out and left in the lockbox. A good day in starting to secure the boulder floor & giving us access downwards, all we need now is to get as much sand & cement material down there to enable this to continue ;-) . 

Bang wire tidied up & left in inclined rift

On the surface for 1830. Mike K.

MK evaluating.

MK building.

Wednesday 13th May

 Quick trip to look at the dig in Mad Hatters as I hadn't got around to visiting the chamber so far. Kushy was planning to dig but had to cancel. MHH was dry at the dig end and muddy at the entry point, definitely not flooded. The intermediate chamber had a puddle at the Hookah Pipe exit. Two impressive chambers and a lot of mud to shift. The air seemed OK although I did feel hot and sweaty from the end of the Hookah Pipe. Below the entrance and all the way to the now drained Puddle Dig, it looked like a lot of water had come in from the previous wet weather. 

No photos taken 

1 hr 45 minutes  

 Mike Wise