Wednesday 17th June 2026

Puddle Dig Team: Freya Bearn, Sam Hill, Stuart Jelliss, Mike Kushy and James Vickery.

Four of us arrived at the entrance at about 18.30 and headed down to Puddle Dig. Initially James and I were clipping buckets of loose rocks from the dam onto a rope which Mike and Sam then hauled up. However when Stuart Jelliss arrived I was sent down to the dig face. At the bottom of a slope lay an uninviting crawl into a pool of mud and loose bits of rock, which terminated where a large boulder sloped down into a puddle of sloppy mud.
After a while of clearing the larger chunks of rock from the foot of the slope, which I handed up in buckets to Stuart, I ventured towards the far end of the crawl to the foot of the boulder which sloped down from the ceiling. I began to clear the mud by hand, expecting to hit solid rock beneath it, but was instead met by a gritty sand-like substance. Beneath me was a large slab of rock which prevented me from going too far forwards, but I managed to loosen much of the grit with a crowbar which I continued to shovel out. To my excitement, when I pushed the crowbar into the grit, it kept pushing forwards without hitting an endpoint. Furthermore, having cleared enough mud out of the way, I could put my hand underneath the boulder and felt that it arched upwards. It seemed as though beyond the grit and mud was a large gap leading downwards, which could be made accessible by widening the gap between the boulder which sloped down and the rock on the ground. By the time we had stopped, enough had been removed that I could no longer reach through with my arms.
Mike and Sam came down to look. Looking behind us on the way out, we could see cracks in the ceiling beneath which I had been digging. Mike and Sam debated putting in scaffold bars, but it was agreed that the ceiling would have to come down to make it safe. This would also give a bit more room for manoeuvre, as currently there is not space to sit up. Out by 21.00. Freya.

Tea Party Chamber Dig Team: Mikey Waterworth and Mike Wise.

Dropped into the entrance just after 1730 with a drill and grinder in a tackle bag, two batteries in a small box and 3 x 25 litre containers 2 of which were cut as buckets and 1 as a drag tray. After some discussion at the TPC dig, including Mikey disappearing some distance into the floor, operations commenced. All references are made from the viewpoint of someone standing immediately above/in front of the dig.

4 mixes of cement were made and used to fix rocks in place in the large gap below the two large boulders at upper left.

A second horizontal bar was fixed across the front between the two uprights and wedged at each end against rock - see first photo below.

Mud, small rock and some quite large rocks were removed from the floor of the dig in the centre and right hand side. The small stuff was placed above the dig on the left to form a flattish platform and otherwise used to fill voids in the main boulder slope

Large rocks including those from the dig were placed against the new upper horizontal bar as part of our plan to build this up stage by stage to level out the main boulder slope - see video.

The cement mixes used up all the available water, all the cement except for 3/4 of one large daren drum and all the sand except for 1 bag.

We agreed that placement of two bars, one either side between the the two uprights and the two lower bars running to the hanging bedding wall (see photo 2) would be need to further stabilise things. Also the mud and stone wall adjacent to the bedding wall on the right needs stabilising which could be done by adding more bars with pieces of GRP grid behind and stone wedged in any remaining gaps.

Before leaving we had a bit of a tidy up putting all scaffolding bits up with the red tackle bag and gathering what sand we could find into one location. We left some of the cut 25L positioned as drip collectors but in these weather conditions they are not going to collect very much.

Mikey took the drill/grinder bag up but the battery box and 3 empty daren drums were ferried one at a time by rope up the light connection. The daren drums were chained up through the more tricky parts of the exit although one did escape our care on two occasions. 

In the Boulder Rift connection we found 4 tackle bags stashed. Apparently they were 1 of cement and 3 of sand.

We reached the surface hot and bothered but satisfied at 2115.

 Mike Wise 

Dig location. Photo MWa.

Closer view. Photo MWa.

Saturday 13th June 2026

David Cooke (Cookie) and Mike Kushy. We took the 4 scaffold bars by the entrance shaft down to TPC. DC's first time in the cave, so he went through to see MHH. MK started making a mix and this was used up building up to support a corner area. DC returned and continued with another 2 mixes, whilst MK built and added another vertical pole. It's all feeling a lot safer already and we even braved venturing below. There's some hefty calcited boulders to build off lower down and the job isn't looking so difficult to me anymore. 4x drums of sand, 2x cement and a small amount of dust in cave, need water also. We came out the old route. 3 hours. Mike.

Friday 12th June 2026

'Caucus Race'...?!

Harley Bennet, Ed Ford and Mike Kushy. Got to the entrance for just after 1700. We lowered 5 heavy bags containing sand, cement and drill and also picked up the scaffold clip bag on route. We leap frogged and ferried them down to TPC. MK and HB had a go at the higher end dig in TPC whilst EF down-sized and moved larger rocks from in and around the scaffold dig with PF's. After a while MK joined EF and the pair worked on cementing whilst HB spent his time building walls at the higher dig. More rock removed and we now have a square frame. Lost track of how much material is in cave but we brought out all the tackle sacks and these are in the lock-box on surface along with 1@1/2bags of sand and 2/3 bag of cement. MK and HB popped to get tools from MHH and the air felt very stale, whereas there was a lovely cool breeze coming up the light connection today. EF placed a section of small ladder he acquired (thanks Mick) into a gap in the ceiling right where you get into the thrutch. I personally really liked it, just needs securing. Out for 21.30. Mike.

There is/was caveable space down there. Photo MK.

MK in 'Scaff' dig. Photo EF.

The 'Higher' dig. Photo HB.

Left wall. Photo HB.

Right. Photo HB.

Wednesday 10th June 2026

Freya Bearn, Billy Evans, Ed Ford and Mikey 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! Mikey.

Top of dig in TPC. Photo MW.

Post trip. Photo MW.

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.