25th January

Report by Vince

Vince, Brockers, Jake, Jon and Nick.

The application of IRS had the desired effect and there was a pile of rubble waiting to be removed. I passed the larger lumps behind and scraped the gravel back to Jake, who had a bit more space to bag up the debris and down the line the spoil moved. It’s quite a long way along the rift now so the team was fully employed. The bags and rocks joined last weeks stockpile on the north side of the “spa”. When the loose stuff had been cleared from the end, the hammer and chisel were used to remove fractured stuff from the wall, all clean and tidy for the application of the next phase in the coming week. Hopefully, next weekend we’ll get a better look at the way forward.

The end all tidy it was time to move back and clear the filled bags and rock from the cave. Brockers had been suffering from a cold so it was suggested a spell in the healing waters of the “spa” would do him good, at least that was the plan. Once a few teething problems, such as a missing skip, were ironed out the hauling process worked smoothly, and the spoil was delivered to the bottom of the entrance.

The last task of the session was to haul the spoil out to the surface; 50+ bags and a dozen or so skip-loads of rock were added to the heap. Some walling was also achieved. All cleared, the cave was secured and we departed.

Author: mendipgeoarch

Archaeologist, Geologist, Speleologist