On the 14th May 2018 we started to notice that the wall of the shaft on the South side was “delaminating” ie, gaps appearing between beds of limestone. By the next month a definite under cut was appearing, the way on was blocked with boulders, but over the coming months these were cleared with a combination of crowbars and hammers, capping.
By October 2018 we could crawl along approximately 6 metres of passage to another large boulder. At this point it was decided to go back and deepen the horizontal passage to make future digging easier. During all this time massive amounts of spoil were being hauled back to the main chamber, this involved hauling the spoil nearly 40 metres vertically and 10 metres horizontally. The draught in this time has improved from a feeling of “fresh air” at the bottom, to now a “gentle breeze”.
At present the “end” is terminated with a very large rock with a 150 to 200mm gap over the top with the wind from the Cheddar master cave blowing on our faces. As always Thanks go to all the regular diggers and the occasional ones, as Tesco says, every little helps - Work continues…
