Saturday 12th July 2025

Lee Venning, Hollie London, Ed Ford and Mike Kushy. Met at 10. MK forgot his drill but fortunately LV had one he could bring. Took in drill and some drums of sand and 1 of cement. LV went to the dig face and cleared around 20 buckets, then HL went to the front and did around a dozen buckets. EF then went to the face and cleared until it was big boulders that needed downsizing. MK then went to the front and did some pf work. MK stayed at the face for the rest of the session, around 60 buckets cleared in total. HL then left and LV/EF started mixing up some cement, which MK used up at the face. Nice draughty hole in the floor, that draughts more the more stuff pulled out, but is hard to fully clear currently. LV and EF in the meantime removed more rock from the higher bucket route and flattened out the route well. MK used some cement to start a wall opposite the 'alcove' to hold back the ever slumpin' mud wall. LV and EF headed out with drill and whatever bags/drums they could manage. MK stayed on for another half hour and did his best to render up the upper bucket route. MK came out with 3 drums and a tackle sack, all tackle sacks and empty drums left in the lockbox on surface. 1 full drum of sand in the cave and 1/2 drum of cement. The dig face is mainly 1ft wide boulders that need prying and pf's down to size. 5 hours. Mike.

MK's youtube video from today

Looking down. Photo HL.

Looking down. Photo HL.

Looking down. Photo HL.

Draughty hole, this is looking east into the floor. Photo MK.

The beginning of the wall opposite the 'Alcove'. Photo MK.

Some rock removed for ease of the upper haul. Photo MK.

Final section of the upper haul, rock removed and rendered. Photo MK.

Wednesday 9th July

 Mike Wise, Ed Ford and Sam Hill. Carried in 3 daren drums of sand and EF also took a 1/2 drum of cement. We dropped all this at Cement Dig and went to have a look at the scaff structure. We agreed it looked sound enough with the bar ends pinned or blocked and cemented and the descending block and flake adequately supported. Mulling over whether to dig here or endure purgatory at Puddle, it was decided by unanimous vote to continue digging down here. SH took pole position having not seen it since early April, MW went to the top and EF heroically shuttled between the shaft top and the awkward boulder half way up the slope carrying 2 buckets at a time and unjamming pretty much every bucket at least once in different locations. Between 19:00 and 20:30 we moved out 26 buckets at which point we decided to call it an evening. We are all still alive and EF is clearly made of heroic stuff!

 Photos by N/A

 2 1/2 hours 

Mike Wise 

Tuesday 8th July 2025

am. John Cooper spent a couple of hours trying to turn triangular blocks into rectangular building stones. Running out of nice rocks; filling trailer with rubbish rocks. John.

Monday 7th July 2025

am. John Cooper spent a couple of hours trying to turn triangular blocks into rectangular building stones. John.

Saturday 5th July 2025

Mike Kushy and John Gisborne. Met at 10am and took in tackle sack of scaff' clips, angle grinder, drill and small tools for the work. MK went to the dig face first to assess any movement, then JG went in to look at what scaffolding work was needed. The aim was to make it safe, but also allow enough room to still dig. We opted to close up the 'up cave' area as there's no way we're making our way horizontally back under ourselves. JG set about drilling for 16mm threaded pins and starting the scaffold whilst MK went back to surface to get more pole. 6 x 2m poles brought in. It's feeling a heck of a lot safer already so we made some cement mixes to build up around the scaff' bar ends. Another couple of weekends work yet before back to clearing. Amazing draught today seemingly coming from everywhere! It looks as though we may be on top of an E/W rift about 2ft wide, clearing back the opposite side to our proud solid wall and a little lower it's looking a lot like one big wall...but time will tell. 1 daren drum of sand in cave and all empty drums took to surface to be refilled, also need to take in water for mixing. 4 1/2 hours. Mike.

JG fitting scaffold supports. Photo MK.

Looking North into dig base. Photo MK.

Looking South into dig base. Photo MK.