White Pit - Wednesday 12th December

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mark Denning
2.5hrs
Hauled all the bags up to Talus and Mark emptied them. Estelle went and dug and cleared out 3 bags worth, but getting harder to dig as space a bit limited. James did one bag and then Mark did a further 3, but we all agreed it needs banging to make it bigger which hopefully will be done next Wednesday. Air remained clear all evening down there and it appears to be draughting inwards.

White Pit 5/12/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon

1.5hrs

Digging the end and moved all the bags we dug and had stored previously up to the top ready for a haul next time. Mike dug first and then Estelle had a dig and then Mark. Fairly easy digging in stal floor which has a mud infill underneath and any rocks seem to be coming out ok. Debatable as to whether the bit we are sat in could do with a little chemical persuasion to enlarge, but the way on so far is easy digging so we could leave as is. There is a boulder in the roof above which is well stalled in but looks a bit precarious. Way on has an obvious sign of a void, how big we might well find out next time… Hoping for something a bit more than the usual little pocket we seem to find! 

White Pit 27/9/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning & Mike Moxon
2hrs
Arrived and bang had removed some of the rock but also only cracked some of the walls. Took a couple of pics then removed the already full bags up to Talus before Mike went in and had a dig. The air was really quite bad down the bottom although much of the bang fumes were gone. Mike did about 1/2hr or so before he came out and Mark went in and did about 1/2hr or so. Straight on blocked by calcite now, floor is still soft and diggable, left hand might go under. There seems to be some sort of draught, but there really is limited oxygen in it! Retreated to pub with headaches! We really need to remove all our digging debris from there and also empty the place of the hessian bags, that were a good idea at the time, but might not be helping the air problem as they do rot and get mouldy.

White Pit 11/9/12

Estelle Sandford, James Begley
Popped in for 20mins to retrieve Stu Lindsay’s bang wire. Noticeable smell of bang as you go down the slope into second chamber and whole of Talus IV smelt bad. I went as far as the hauling corner just above steep bit and managed to free the wire and we pulled it up from there. Reckon that needs another good couple of weeks before a revisit to the actual dig site.

White Pit 6/9/12

(missing 2 trips from here from Mark between this and 4/7)
Estelle Sandford, Stu Lindsay

Mark & Henry had already drilled holes last Monday, so 8x 12mm, 450mm long holes ready. Holes suitably stuffed and then set it off from the bottom of entrance shaft, with a satisfying thud in the distance. Will need to retrieve Stu’s bang wire soon, but dig needs leaving for about a month before checking.
Trip time 2hrs

White Pit 4/7/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning and Mike Moxon
2.5hrs
Emptied and cleared all the bags that were en route or awaiting emptying and bagged up the old rotting ones for taking out of the cave later. I dug first, quite awkward digging now as having to dig around ankles with limited space around. Mike had a go next and then Mark and Stu – still plenty coming out, still have some sort of draught as the air remained clearer the entire time although really needs another bang.

White Pit 13/6/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson
1.5hrs
Stu G turned up at Belfry with idea on breaking rock with air chisel, tested it and it used an entire 7L cylinder in 2 minutes! He hadn’t brought any kit, so didn’t come over. Henry on surface wall building still. Estelle, Mark and Mike to dig, moved bags up to Talus, then moved ones from shelf in dig to Talus leaving Mike filling bags. He filled 12 and we ran out of time. There is a draught, but no air as such, it is still quite hard to breath at times down there. Dig now has an archway going on at the end, floor still needs digging out. Reckon another session should let us know if we need to bang it again.

White Pit - 6/6/12 - back to the dig!

Estelle Sandford & Mark Denning
1.5hrs digging the end.
Mike failed to turn up on time, it was peeing with rain so we decided to give up the idea of cementing in favour for a dig at the end to clear the bang we laid back in Jan. Filled about a dozen bags until we ran out and then moved most of them up ready to haul and Mark carried on digging spoil out. The bang has done a good job and lots of fractured rock/stal, but reckon we’ll need another once we’ve cleared this. Sort of think we can hear space beyond, also at one point there did seem to be a draught, although the air was generally poor! We need to get this air tested for CO2 levels at some point soon… Looked at side opposite to the shoring on way in, we need to look at finding a way of making that safer as it looks like it has the potential to all come in and collapse rather than just slump and because of our new route in, we are caving more to the left now than before. We also need to have a damn good clearout in there as the place is minging with mouldy bags and other rotting vegetation we’ve left behind…

White Pit 23/5/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon
2.5hrs
More wallbuilding and cementing. Mostly filled in the incoming side of Klingons, just working on the other side now. Both the left and right hand walls look like they have the potential to slump in without some sort of protection in place. They aren’t as bad as the main bit we’ve blocked off with metalwork and railway sleepers though. Reckon one more cementing session and we can go back to our dig.

White Pit 18/5/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Henry Dawson
2.5hrs
Took over more sand and cement and made a mix then Henry arrived so we lowered the railway sleepers into place and put them on the metalwork. Then started wallbuilding on top of them and did quite a lot of cement before retiring to the Hunters.

White Pit 18/4/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner, later joined by Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson
3hrs
Took down drill, etc. and generator to bolt some of the bars in place with anchor bolts, also removed a bit more rock to make sure we were back at secure rock. All three of the short lengths bolted into place, now need to bring down some cut down railway sleepers and cement lots or rock in. Mike & Henry brought some cement and Henry started a project to build a shed construction on the surface to house the air pump and generator while we are digging. They made a start on that.

White Pit 14/3/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Sarah Payne
1.5hrs

Me and James at bottom loading bags/boulder net and rest at top hauling with winch and emptying said bags and net. All empty now so have moved the winch and a frame to under the trees. Removed a good pile of rocks, all make lovely rockery rocks!

White Pit 7/3/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon, Ivan Sandford
2hrs

Ivan had repaired the capstan winch (shit in the carburettor!) and back running fine. I had made a new boulder net for smaller stuff and we got to hauling lots out. Ran out of petrol part way but Ivan saved the day with some fuel he had as we’d forgotten and we reckoned at end of session we have about 1/2hr or so left of clearance. Got very cold on the surface hauling stuff out.

White Pit 3/3/12 hauling day

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Trevor Hughes, Mike Moxon (fresh back from 6 weeks in New Zealand!). (Jo Hardy (& Amelia) and Hels Warren turned up with cakes and sausage sarnies lunchtime)

Turned up at Belfry and loaded up the capstan winch and scaff bars for A frame and all the other bits and bobs we thought we might need and headed over to the dig. Stu missed the obvious chain over gate post when trying to get into the field, but thankfully I noticed that one! We initially tried to ‘sled’ the winch over but decided to wheel it across as field not that muddy. Set everything up and Trev soon arrived with boulder net and some strops. We set to work with me, James and Stu at the bottom and Mark and Trev at the top who were joined by Mike an hour or so later with his jetlag! We removed roughly a third of the pile of boulders before lunch and I also went down to the dig to see if I could get a suitable skip, but we seem to have only damaged ones. The dig was clear of fumes, although very mouldy and there is plenty to clear at the end now from the last bang we couldn’t get to a couple of months back! Came out at 1ish when Jo turned up for lunch and beers and then Hels turned up with cupcakes. We went back underground/surface haul soon after, but the winch only lasted about 30mins or so before it started stalling on us and we couldn’t keep it running, so forced to give up and go and drink coffee at the Belfry. Hoping Ivan can fix before Wednesday so we can continue clearance and also get on with the shoring work. When I looked from the other side of the collapse, there’s a boulder that looks a bit dodgy, but it may be possible to force it to stay in place with shoring/cement.
09:30-15:00

Templeton 22/2/12

Mark Denning & Estelle Sandford went over to Templeton to collect some steel for White Pit and have a look at their dig and dig with them. Stu Gardiner came over and took some metalwork, but didn’t go underground as he didn’t have kit.
They have some serious engineering there, including a dumper truck and cctv and lots of winches and pumps! They also had a breakthrough on Monday into a new pitch which is 35ft long and 8-10ft wide and still going. Mark went down to look at that and I went down to their main dig which had just finished being pumped out. Dug about 10 or so buckets and then came up all the fixed ladders to the surface. Very muddy at the bottom.
2hrs

White Pit 15/2/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, James Begley
2.5hrs

Using the trusty chisel and ‘feather’ method – lots of holes drilled and used them like plug and feathers to break up the boulders, many fractured easily with just sledge hammer. We have cleared all the boulders now from the top of coffee pot and that is now open, and can get through to Talus, although still looking dodgy – I went through to have a bit of a look and don’t think it’s likely to come in on it’s own again, but we need to shore it properly having started the job! Waist of Thyme is now blocked with the spoil requiring going to the surface. We are planning to sort a weekend job of hauling and clearing with borrowing an A-frame and winch to do the job. Also needing to go over to Templeton to acquire some metalwork as they have all the digging pile of steel donated by Trevor Hughes.

White Pit 8/2/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Stu Lindsay, Trevor Hughes and Tim Large
2.5hrs
Others came down to assess the damage and give us ideas on way forward with shoring. We removed about 2 tonne of rock from the collapse up to the entrance to Waist of Thyme and nearly blocking the way on there. 20 bags of spoil as well and all this needs to go surface once we’ve sorted out a winch/A-frame. Way on is sort of open, but needs a lot or rebar and shoring up and cementing in order to stop further slumps.

White Pit 1/2/12 - crash... bang... whallop...!

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning
1hr
Took a longer bar and hammer down, poked the armchair sized boulder and the wedge and didn’t come down immediately, but putting a rope around the little one and prodding the big one brought the lot down – an immense amount crashed down making Stu literally leap up out of the pot and we all exited pretty fast as it felt like the cave was caving in! Went to surface and looked around, it hasn’t collapsed the surface! Went back down and took a closer look, can still hear rocks falling and the way on to Talus is thoroughly blocked now. We need to consider whether to try and access from above or try and clear and cement this in to regain access in coming months.

White Pit 25/1/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning
1.5hrs
Went to look at dig at end of talus and still really bad with bang fumes 1.5 weeks later. It had been noticed when they went down on the banging trip that there had been a slip at the dodgy place by top of coffee pot/Talus junction so we took a crow bar and some rope and realigned some boulders – with a little prod and pull, we had serious boulder jenga and loads came down. Coffee Pot is almost blocked now and the way on to Talus is still just about passable, but there is a hanging death armchair sized boulder ‘floating’ above so we won’t be going under there in a hurry. Decided to leave it to self dig if it wanted to and come back for another look later.

White Pit 4/1/12

Estelle, Henry D & Mike M

2.5hrs

Henry went in first clearing the remains of the rubble created by Mark last time with the chisel drill and continued digging downwards through mud while Mike & Estelle hauled about a dozen bags up from the dig and shelf. Then Estelle went in and after doing a little digging in the floor, was attacked from above by a tennis ball sized rock, so decided the roof needed gardening. This has been tidied now and a fair bit of rock brought down. The digging in the floor isn’t easy as it’s quite tight and you need to double up and have your head by your feet! Mike went in after and carried on gardening and clearing spoil. As it stands ideally need the chisel drill for next time as the passage we are following down is getting quite deep and really awkward to dig now and needs widening and hammer and chisel has little impact. It may be worth considering Dr Nobel’s linctus as well, although air was really rubbish all night tonight, quite thick all the way through in the dig area and above it. All bar the last few bags were cleared to Talus and dumped.

Lock has been changed as old one died.

White Pit 14/12/11

Estelle, Mark, Stu, Mike, Henry

3hrs

Last dig for Mark before baby due to take over his life! Using the generator/drill as much as possible to create as much debris as possible and do as much damage as possible to give work for the next session! All took in turns to have a dig, quite a lot of looser mud and stal encrusted around it, but still needs widening. Following a water worn wall and can see s bit of what looks like black space beyond, but not sure what we’ve got. All bar last few bags cleared up to Talus. Also poking around in RH wall in middle of Talus by spoil pile removing big boulders to pass the time and keep warm! Air not overly good, but kept better by only the digger being in the dig and the rest generally staying up in Talus out of the way.

Stu Gardiner & Mark Denning.

A very productive digging session that saw around 20 bags filled from lowering the floor and removing most of the small boulders that lay in the way, the chisel bit on the drill worked very well breaking up the loosed stall and fractured rock (probably from previous chemical persuasion).

Again the bad air drove us out towards the end although there is plenty to haul and around 4 - 5 bags worth of loose spoil to be extracted from the hole.

It would seem that the right hand wall of the hole undercuts and with the aid of a camera Mark managed to get a photo of underneath the dig face which again shows another void.

A new skip is now in place.

Total time underground: 3.5 hours.


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Location:While Pit - 11/12/11

Mark Denning, Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson.

Work continued on trying to gain access to the hole beyond, the floor was lowered but will need a considerable amount more to make digging the hole comfortable.

Total time underground: 3 hours


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Location:White Pit - 07/12/11

Whitepit - 23/11/11

Mark Denning, Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson.

Continued with the removal of the bang debris and filled bags from the last digging session, these were all hauled up to Talus and stacked.

Work continued on the large boulder, which was reduced in size further more, a significant hole has appeared underneath the boulder which when rocks are rolled down they tumble away for a short distance, the best thing is that we now know that the boulder has an end to it and this will aid the final extraction.

Mud from either side of the dig face has been removed making it even more spacious.

Around 40 skips were taken to Talus throughout the evening.

A Petzl hanger has been installed directly above the dig to aid the hauling of the bags and skips, it is now estimated that to get bags and skips to the base of the first shaft we need 4 people (2x people at the dig, one person at the bolt, and another to move the bags to the base of the shaft).

The plan is to take the generator down on Monday 28th to assist in the removal of the boulder with digging as normal on the Wednesday.

Total time underground 3 hours.




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White pit - 09th November 2011

Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner & Henry Dawson.

Mark and Stu spent 2 hours breaking up smaller boulders and removing around 6 -8 bags of spoil before drilling 6 shot holes in the large boulder, Henry arrived around 20:50 (just before the pub) and placed the cord into the shot holes, with the bang wire in place and rigged up we detonated from Tallus before exiting the cave.

The plan is to leave the site for around 2 weeks to allow the fumes to totally clear before venturing back down and removing the bang debris.

Total time underground: 3.5 hours


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White pit 15th oct 2011

Mark Denning

My house has been overrun by women and I am well out numbered so there is only one thing to do... run away. So White Pit digging it is then.
The task at hand is to enlarge the space at the dig face because its tighter than a nuns c**t. I have decided that the way to do this is to take out the loose looking small boulder from the right hand wall. This will in turn free up the large boulder which the open water worn hole is disappearing under.
Armed with the 110v drill I got stuck in. At first I thought this would be a fairly quick task athough I should have known from my optimism that this would not be the case. I removed the stal and small rocks from around the top and two sides, inserted two chisels and beat the hell out of it. Not a twitch, this thing was still stuck fast so I started to loosen up the underside at which point I found out why it didn't move. It didn't stop where I thought it did, it's bloody huge.
Now, me being a little stubborn all this means is I had to hit it a little harder. After 6 hours underground I filled up several more bags, got the massive boulder out of the wall, moved it as far as I could (about 4 feet), created a huge pile of spoil at the end and got beaten out of the dig by the bad air which was by now getting pretty bad.

Mark Denning 6hrs digging

Whitepit 12 oct 2011

Stu Gardiner,Mark Denning and Henry Dawson

After a few weeks of good digging and many loads of spoil removed from the dig face it has now gotten to the point where getting out of the dig is in its self a challenge. The time has come to do a hauling session and break up the huge boulders that we can't remove because they're just too damn heavy.
Stu and myself went down first and carried on poking the hole in the bottom until Henry showed up. Then the 3 of us hauled out all the bags of spoil and several large boulders that didn't really fit in the skip but Stu assured me that balancing 20 kilo rocks on top of and partly inside of the skip was as safe as house's.
Henry now carried on digging whilst Stu and myself broke up the remaining really big boulders using the two chisel method ie. drill two 14mm holes side by side make them into a slot, insert both chisel's and hit as hard as you can. The results are pretty impressive, 300-400mm thick boulders split neatly straight down the middle.
Once all the boulders were in manageable chunks we hauled them up to the middle point, gave up and called pub time. All in all a very successful evenings work.

2.5 hrs in dig ish

Whitepit - 08/10/11

Mark Denning & Stu Gardiner


Phase 1 was to remove the extremely large boulder that was concealing what seemed like a water worn rift below, on the previous visit Mike was unable to even move it.  Stu set about chiselling away any stal using the 110v drill from around the edges.  The plan was to try and break it into 2 manageable sections so 6x 10mm 500mm deep shot holes were drill through the boulder, the were enlarged with a 14mm short drill bit to allow the chisels to be set in, after a few minutes of whacking the chisels the boulder cracked in 2 allowing the 2 sections to be removed from the dig face.


The way on seemed to again be straight down in the floor, however a small void under what seemed to be a solid wall gave the impression that it may well go horizontally.


Mark went in to investigate the wall, he then came to the conclusion that the wall was in fact another very large boulder/s that was agian staled in place, he set about removing the stal with the drill until it was exposed enough to attack.


Stu then adopted the shot hole approach in an attempt to remove the top of the boulder that was wedged fast against the roof, this would hopefully free up the boulder enough to crack it in half with another set of shot holes - this was all carried out seamlessly.  Stu went up top to recover from mild C02 poisoning whilst Mark removed the 2 sections of boulder.


The removal of the boulder revealed around 3ft of open passage beyond, this was dug down in awkward conditions and again another void was located at the base of a scollped wall with white stal present.


The floor is very loose and the way on is straight down.


The dig is totally stacked out with filled bags and many large boulders that will need to be removed ASAP.


We were finally beaten and forced to retreat due to high levels of C02 - a pint in the Queen Vic soon aided recovery.


Thoughts on the high C02 is that we spent nearly 4 hours on Wednesday working hard on the boulders and then 48 hours later another 4 hours working equally as hard, this coupled with the decreased space due to the filled bags and boulders would have reduced the flow 02.


Total time underground: 4 hours.

Whitepit - 05/06/11

Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner & Mike Moxon.

Another good session with the generator and 110v drill, the large (massive) boulder was considerably reduced and most sides exposed.

It is thought that one more session will see it moved enough to break it up and then remove from the dig face.

Hopefully the way on is downwards and it 'should' be relatively comfortable digging.

Total time underground: 3 hours


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Whitepit - 28/09/11

Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon.

Mark went down early with the generator and drill and managed to take off the large flake of rock that was barring access to the floor below.

After this was removed from the dig Stu started to remove the floor and exposed a water worn clean washed (small) rift leading off and continuing downwards, this was blocked with small rocks and debris from our previous digging above. A large staled boulder will need to be broken up using wedges before we can carry on, this will hopefully make the digging reasonably comfortable.

A hauling session will be needed soon as the dig is filling up fast, air was good although very dusty dye to the excessive drilling and chiseling.

Total time underground: 3 hours


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White Pit 7/9/11

Estelle, Mark D, Mike M & Bill C

2.5hrs

Did a haul and cleared all bags, may have noted a flaw in our eco bags – they get rather mouldy! Once cleared, we took it in turns to have a dig, initially hammer and chiselling at the rock, but this was pretty fruitless so worked at the muddy corner off to the left and cleared that out. Doesn’t look like any sort of obvious way on, so need to consider Dr Nobel’s special or otherwise back at it with the chisel drill. No point in digging really without one or the other at the moment. Suspect we’ve blocked up way on currently as air not so good tonight.

White Pit 17/8/11

Estelle, Mark, Henry D

Using chisel drill again with generator and managed to break up a bit more rock, still quite slow going and may need to drill holes or make use of Dr Nobel’s best to enlarge and get rid of rock in the way. Hopefully a few more sessions should give some answers. Air still clear, although dusty by the end of the session

2.5hrs

White Pit 9/8/11

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon, Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner

Digging in usual dig at bottom of talus with generator and chisel drill. Stu went in first and managed to get rid of the rock bridge to make a bit more room and then inverted himself to have a look down the hole. It is water worn and seems to drop away shortly, but still too tight and small to get into. Estelle went in next and attacked the left hand wall. Rock crumbling reasonably easy into small pieces, but still relatively slow progress (although a lot faster than a hammer and chisel would be!) - had a look myself at the way on and it looks good and feels cold/fresh. Mike went in next and carried on attacking the rock, followed by Mark. Looks like we need the chisel drill again next session, plus a damn good bag haul.

2.5hrs

13/7/11 to 3/8/11 Whitepit. The end is nigh

To start with, Mark (myself) has gotten over the man flu which struck him down at such a tender age and rejoined the digging efforts made by the White Pit team. A great deal has changed in the last few weeks the tiny void of which Stu got his fist stuck in has grown massively as Estelle described in the last blog, and the new bags work very well. Something to do with the fact Stu can't over fill them.

20/7/11 The big haul
The amount of spoil down at the dig has now gotten to the point where Stu and Estelle had to move bags to climb out of the dig face on the last trip. Space is in short supply.
After a good hauling session and there now being enough room to start digging again we set about filling bags with nice soft mud. The only problem is the dig face is not quite high enough to sit upright so you have to sit with your head to one side with your legs out in front of you while trying to dig the mud from around your feet and putting it into the bag up by your head. This is not the most comfortable position to dig in and don't half hurt your neck after a while.

27/7/11 I think we got something
Digging today was Estelle Sandford, Mike Motson, Mark Denning, Henry Dawson and a few guest cavers who were made to haul in payment for a tourist trip guided by Mike.
One of our main team was missing tonight on a Wednesday digging night. I found out later that Stu Gardiner was in fact at home building wardrobes (turns out they were no ordinary wardrobes they were in fact larger than GB so he said).
After the visitors had done there work Mike said his farewells and wandered of on his tourist trip which just left myself Estelle and Henry D, Henry had a go at digging first as he had to leave early so this just left me and Estelle.
After about half an hour Estelle came crawling out of the dig with the usual chronic neck ache and so it was my turn .
The dig face was now getting very awkward to dig so I decided to try to lower the floor that we had all been sitting on whilst trying to reach to dig at the face. Within a couple of good swings with the hammer and chisel a little hole appeared and with every strike it got bigger. By now Estelle was getting very excited and asking what I could see. Looking down, there was a deep black hole about 4 to 5feet deep with possible leads off in several directions. The best thing of all, the one thing we have not had in this dig before, there was a draft. It's not a howling gale but it is enough to keep the air in the dig fresh and crisp.
The digging pace now sped up with both myself and Estelle very eager to try and move enough of the boulders to get a good look at the leads at the bottom of the hole.
End of session and time to tell the team what we had uncovered no surprise here they were all a bunch of sceptics its not like either me or Estelle would wind them up is it.

30/7/11Time to hit it hard
With Mike busy and Stu on a charterhouse sump pushing trip it was left to Estelle and myself to go back armed with the generator and chisel drill to beat the hell out of this new hole and widen it to body size.
We were only down there for about 4.5 hours and in this time we filled a dozen or more bags and pulled out several of the large boulders that were in the way. This gave us enough space to get a good look down the hole but we still couldn't see how far it goes .
It was now getting close to finishing up time and with Estelle suffering from the effects of too much free alcohol the night before we made one last push to remove a small boulder about the size of my torso and left it there needing help to get it out.

1/8/11
Digging on a Monday we must be keen. The first job of the day get that boulder out. With Stu under it and Mark above we heaved the boulder up to the first ledge and wedged it there using Stu's head. Surprisingly Stu didn't like this technique much so with a little more pushing the boulder was taken up to the hauling point.
Now the rest of the team could get in there and and see what the fuss was about. The air was still fresh and crisp and good progress is being made.

3/8/11 That's a lot of spoil
On the previous couple of trips we had all used the chisel drill and this is very effective which produces lots of spoil. First job Estelle Mark and Mike had to haul 30+ bags of spoil and several large rocks that Estelle had some how managed to fit in the skip. Not long after starting, Henry D turned up and finished of the emptying of all the bags. Digging was by hand tonight and Henry was very keen to get in the dig face after learning about the new found discovery. Unfortunately I had gone in first and broke our only lump hammer again.
No matter we still made good progress with the crowbar.

To round it all up, Stu Gardiner, Estelle Sandford, Mike Motson, Mark Denning, Jo Hardy, Bill Combley and Henry Dawson along with numerous others past and present have opened up what would appear to be a small but drafting water worn passage that has a great deal of potential so we will keep you all posted with more news as it BREAKS.

Whitepit - 13/07/11

Estelle Sanford and Stu Gardiner

With Mark having man flu and Mike being a traitor and digging Bone Hole we set about attacking the dig face with our newly acquired eco friendly bags that we found in the digging store, this was due to Mark filling the others on Saturday.

Our Eco Friendly bags were excellent

The dig face is now almost comfortable and you can almost sit upright and dig forwards. The CO2 levels were of a constant worry however it was agreed that they were acceptable and did not really cause and issue, towards the end it was noticeable that our breathing became a little heavier but not dangerous by any means, the plan is to acquire a CO2 meter for a later trip purely as a matter of interest.

The dig seems to be following the same trend as the rest of the excavated passage but is showing no signs of dropping in depth (yet), the floor is mud and this needs to be dug out so that the digger can move forward, the roof remains water worn and spirits are high.

Total time underground: 2 hours

Whitepit - 09/07/11

Mark Denning

A solo digging trip as the other were busy at the Folk Fair.

Continued digging in soft mud although the CO2 levels were getting high, several bags filled ready for extracting the following Wednesday.

Total time underground: 3 hours

Whitepit 06/07/11

Mark Denning, Mike Moxon, Estelle Sanford and Stu Gardiner

A rock net was kindly offered to us by the Cain Hill diggers in an attempt at removing the now free boulder from the dig face, Mark tried to secure the net around the boulder but could not get underneath, however as there were 2 plug and feathers still jammed in the centre of the boulder this proved useful as a rope sling could be secured around the boulder using the plugs as anchor points, with Mark at the Boulder the rest of us took the strain on the rope and within 15 minutes the larhe boulder was removed from the dig face and at the base of the first climb down.

The dig face was now considerablly bigger and now a sack could be filled at the face speeding up progress 10 fold.

Towards the end of the session the full bags and a few boulders were taken up to Talus and dissposed of.

Total time underground 3 hours

Whitepit - 29/06/11

Mark Denning, Mike Moxon, Estelle Sanford and Stu Gardiner

Continued digging in and around the large boulder and towards the end of the session this became free although far too heavy to extract without a rock net or sling etc, as it was towards the end of the session it was decided to leave this until next week where we could try and extract it at the begining of the session when everyone was fighting fit.

Total time underground: 2.5 hours

Whitepit - 22/06/11

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner & Mike Moxon


Good progress in the hole, still awkward to dig and the large boulder in the floor becoming more and more exposed, it moves but only slightly, a few more trips should see this removed.


Total time underground: 2.5 hours

Whitepit - 18/06/11

Stu Gardiner & Mark Denning

Not the best start to the day, Mark had somehow managed to loose his STEN light, probably from when we were digging on the previous Saturday, he had his helmet attached onto his back pack and it must have come loose and fallen into the grass, we looked everywhere and could not find it.

Anyway, generator rigged up we headed underground, however just as we approached Talus Mark realised he had forgotten the dust masks and had to go all the way back to the van.

At the dig face the drill was plugged in and to my surprise it lasted 2 seconds and stopped, after sometime Mark appeared and by luck he noticed that the generator was on 240v instead of 110v, he switched it over and all was fine.

We set about widening the approach to the current dig face and although the rock was very tough, a combination of many many holes, chisels and plugs and feathers saw the hole wide enough to start removing the loose mud beyond. All bags were filled along with the skips until we had totally filled the digging area to the point where we could just about exit.

The dig face is now workable although a large (loose) boulder will need to be removed somehow to allow the mud beyond to be dug.  The choked passage is looking good with signs of a good flow of water, the mud is loose and the small rocks come out with ease.

Future sessions will again see lot's of hauling and a massive increase in spoil being deposited in Talus.

NOTE: We will require another Hilti 8mm SDS as we managed to destroy the end of it.

Total time underground: 7 hours

Whitepit - 15/06/11

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson

All the filled bags and skips were taken up to Talus and deposited before work carried on at the dig face, around 4 bags of mud were extracted from the hole along with a large slab of rock which made the area bigger quite quickly.

The approach to the dig is quite snug so the generator and drill will be needed for the weekend.

Total time underground: 2.5 hours

Whitepit - 11th June 2011

Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning & Estelle Sandford

With the newly installed 110v cable to the dig face we transported the small generator to the surface depression and connected the cable before starting the generator.

Once at the dig face we connected the Bosch Hammer Drill and to our relief the drill worked meaning the very old cable was still in a working condition.  We started out by drilling lot's of 10mm holes in the rocks that needed removing, once this was done we bored them out to 16mm to allow the insertion of the plugs and feathers.

Quick progress was made and lot's of rock and rubble was removed.  With the increased drill power the dust being generated was considerably more than that of previous battery powered sessions so we had with us some luxury dust mask (thanks Mark).

During an over ambitious rock splitting moment the plugs and feathers became wedged, we had with us an SDS chisel bit so this was used in an attempt to break the surrounding rock, and to our surprise this worked extremely well and the remainder of the session was spent using the chisel bit to remove a huge amount of rock and stal making the foot sized hole now body sized.

All bags were filled and even the skip so the dig face is currently packed with spoil needing to be removed during the next session.

It is thought that another generator / drill session is needed before hopefully the digging will be mainly mud and small rocks meaning lot's of skip hauling and digging as usual.

Total time underground: 7 hours

Whitepit - 08th June 2011

Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner, Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson

The borrowed St Cuthberts 110v cable (100m) was installed from the entrance down through the cave to the current dig face where around 5m was coiled up for future progression.  The cable was cable tied down the ladder as not to cause an obstruction and tucked away off the main route through the cave.

Once the cable was installed some more hard digging was carried on with little progress being made, Mark had his battery drill so a few plugs and feathers were used and some small sections were removed.

The hole remains small and the removal of any spoil from within requires a very awkward inverted manoeuvre.

Total time underground: 2.5 hours

Tony Audsley's online Log book - Home Close

Below is Tony Audsley's online log book, an interesting read, covering recent activities over at Wigmore fam and the Home Close dig.

Tony Audsley's Digging Log

Whitepit - 05/06/11

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning & Stu Gardiner

We were all woken to Mark making up some 16mm plugs and feathers at the Belfry at what seemed like the middle of the night, however it was around 9am, but we all had hangovers and a hacksaw grinding through steel is not the best of sounds.

The plan was again to attack the floor in an aid to enlarge the hole further to gain access to the loose mud and hopefully easy digging beyond.  Although some of the floor was removed the drill batteries were just not lasting long enough with the 16mm holes needed for the plugs and feathers.

The crow bar was pushed as far down as possible into the loose mud and it was estimated at nearly 1m deep and with plenty more to go.

After a lengthy discussion it was decided that we are to install a 110v cable so that mains powered hammer drills can be used in an attempt to drill more holes, deeper and for longer so finally break the floor up.

Total time undergound: 2 hours



The next phase ..........................

Whitepit - 01/06/11

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson


Time was spent removing the spoil from the dig area, around 10 skips / bags of mainly rock and some mud was taken up to Talus.


The remainder of the session was spent trying to enlarge the small hole that has appeared in the floor, however it is surrounded bu jammed boulders, this along with the the constricted nature of the dig face make for some very hard work. The mud in the hole is very loose and a crow bar revealed that there is lots of broken stal in amongst it.


Total time underground: 2.5 hours

Whitepit 30 may 2011

Mark Denning and Estelle digging today

The idea today was to try and lower the floor enough to see down the water worn archway that disappears into the distance.The main problem we are still encountering is the tight space in which you can not swing a cat and that all the walls are still very solid rock and stall,however we persisted and slowly made the hole big enough to swing the hammer.
After a good couple of hours of bashing away at the floor with plugs and feathers and hammers and chisels the hole leading of is more accessible and i did manage to get a good look down the hole which is small and does look like it could be the void at the top of the roof.
The floor is still a solid lump but is now beginning to break up a couple good sessions should see us with enough room to start digging the water worn hole.
Lots of spoil ready to be brought out about 9 bags

3.5 hours digging

Whitepit - 28/05/11

Mark Denning & Stu Gardiner

Capping and plug feathers in an attempt to widen the dig face so effective digging could carry on. Capping was very bad with stal veins being encountered in most boulders resulting in jammed rods and unexploded caps, plug and feathers were slightly more effective, however with most boulders not having free sides few were broken up enough to make a difference.

After a 'man' talk about what to do next, we decided to concentrate on digging straight down to try and gain more depth thus going past the stal and rock 'mess' which has been a thorn in our sides for many weeks.

After around 20minutes Mark dislodged a small boulder which revealed a void below and a water worn arch leading off in the general direction of the current passage. This is what we have been after and we now have a direction to dig in. The best part being that beyond the hole is loose mud suggesting that the stal 'mess' may have been held back at this point making future digging much more productive................. Time will tell.

Total time underground: 5 hours.

Whitepit - 24/05/11

Stu Gardiner, Henry Dawson & Mark Denning

Time spent attempting to find the direction of the ongoing passage, with mostly chipping away at stal and rock, there would seem to be large boulders wedged against the ceiling and maybe the way on is again down through the floor.

A few rubble sacks were filled and stacked up for when we have more man power.

The air seemed off to start with but over the period of the session it seemed to freshen up with no obvious signs of increased levels of CO2.

Total time underground: 3 hours.

Whitepit 21st may 2011

Sorry for the lack of posts updating after the bang but unfortunately my computer packed up on me but no matter I'm back. So a quick up date from the past couple of weeks. Myself and Henry D went back down a few days after the bang and yes it was fairly successful. The wall and floor had both taken heavy damage and created about 19 loads of spoil of which we hauled back up to the dump.

Then on the following Wednesday evening myself and Jo went down for a couple of hours and removed alot of the big boulder in the floor. Now it looks like the roof has has turned south and digging straight down is the way on.

Lastly for this blog I went down on Saturday to try and widen the hole at the end.I spent a good couple of hours trying to get one little rock out turns out it was like a bloody ice Burg but i got the bugger out. The next digging session should be interesting when everyone else turns up and tries to figure out how the hell we're gonna get this rock up and out of the dig.

That's it all up to date.

White Pit 18-5-11

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Henry Dawson, Bill Combley and Tony (don't know surname!)

Clearing built up spoil bags/skips and digging the end. It has gone back to calcited in rock/mud and does seem to break up with lots of hammer and chisel action. Roof seems to have joined wall and we seem to basically be going straight down at the moment. Air is pretty rubbish at the end and you are panting well the whole time in the dig - we all rotated in for a go at the lack of oxygen though!

2.5hrs

04th May 2011 - Whitepit

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon, Mark Denning & Stu Gardiner

Stu and Mark finally rebolted the entrance ladder with 4x M10 stainless steel bolts to replace the rusty M6 'temporary' fixings, all that needs to be done now is to fix the bottom of the ladder to the ground and to support the mid section against the concrete pipe or railway track support.

Mike and Estelle went to the end to dig / clear remaining spoil from the previous banging trip. Stu and Mark joined them later after fixing the ladder although the air was very bad with the bang fumes still lingering in the air.

Time underground: 2.5 hours

Whitepit 20th april

Mark Denning, Henry Bennett and Henry Dawson
After many hours of tirelessly banging hammers, chisels and plugs and feathers and getting nowhere very quickly, we finally blew the shit out of it thanks to lots of organising on Henry D's side and a bang licence with Henry B. We went down armed with my drill and two not so good battery's and the club drill with 1 battery. As ever best laid plans and all that, the club drill was flat so we only managed to get 4 holes drilled with my battery. Henry B set about rigging our 4 holes with 100 gram which I was told is quite poky. Myself and Henry D then set off up to Tallis taking the bang wire with us. A few minutes later Henry B joined us looking a little puzzled as to why I had unrolled his entire coil of bang wire and was so far away we probably wouldn't even hear the bang. Better safe than sorry I say. After a little messing around with a torch battery for an exploder, success. A bloody good thump woof sound and we legged it so hopefully on the next visit that bloody stal will be blown to bits.

whitepit 9th april

Went down today for 5 hours took nice new lump hammer after breaking the handle on the last one it must of had cave worm .In future must remember to charge both batteries for drill its very annoying to drag it all the way in and its bloody flat anyway digging i dug a 2 ft hole straight down in the floor and only found mud and smaller boulders so i think with another session and a charged drill we might push through this damn stall.

whitepit 6th april 2011

Mark Denning and Vern Freeman digging tonight Still in the stall and Boulder blockage but can see a change in the spoil ahead so hopefully we are coming to the end of the hard digging,This evening myself and vern managed to take some of the floor out with a little of the left hand wall which has left a lot more loose so should make good progress with a couple more trips. 2 or 3 bags of spoil pulled out.

White Pit 16/3/11

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning + Henry Dawson about half hour later.

Chipping away at rock and stal blockage in floor with either hammer and chisel/bar or drilling/P&F, not enough people to clear spoil tonight unfortunately as there is quite a bit in the dig now. Digging area quite dusty at the moment and we need some more dust masks.

2hrs 15mins

pushing the end

Got no work on today so used my spare time in very useful ways had a good go at the end of the dig by removing the boulder that looked like Swiss cheese and very carefully removed Stu's unexploded mine field well it fell out the roof and i moved it to one side if the truth must be known.
We now have 2 skips and 3 bags of spoil to bring out of the dig and after the successful trip on Wednesday where we all had enough to keep the whole team busy for most of the evening the process of using bags when we don't have enough people available to haul on the day worked very well with almost no complaints
Mark Denning 3hrs spent chipping away

White Pit 9th March

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon, Mark Denning, Bill Combley, Steve Chitty

Cleared the dig of spoil left from previous digging and cleared the spoil left in the dig and then chipped away at the rocks and mud making the end larger and more accessible to attack the rocks in front of us.

2hrs underground.

White Pit - 23rd February 2011

Stu Gardiner & Mark Denning

With only the 2 of us and a dig face that was already choked with spoil sacks and rubble that needed removing to Talus we set about trying to dig directly down through the boulders.  Caps were used (3 at a time) and the results were good, the large problem boulder was broken up and the right hand wall was taken back using feathers allowing more movement at the dig face.

Investigations with the crow bar indicates that the roof is still dropping on the same 45 degree angle, this means that we still need to drop the floor level by a considerable amount so that we retain a sizable dig face.

The rubble sacks are very useful allowing the digger to extract spoil and rubble in confined surrounding without the cumbersome skips getting in the way.

NOTE: The dig must be cleared of sacks and rubble before any other digging trips are considered as there is little room. Also there are LIVE caps jammed in some of the rocks (Stu to advise).

Total time underground: 3.5 hours

White Pit - 20th February 2011

Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning & Jo Hardy

Good progress with the floor lowered a few inches and some of the walls taken back a little.

Hessian sacks were used to move the spoil from the dig face as there were only 3 of us.

Total time underground: 3.5 hours


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White Pit - 16th February 2011

Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Estelle Sandford, Jo Hardy & Mike Moxon

With a few skips needing emptying from the previous session emptied, we set about trying to dig past the large stal blockage, the theory being that once we are past this then the passage will widen and that we may regain the left hand wall, although it seems unlikely the wall will be found, however we still have obvious roof formations that are keeping us on track.

The dig face is currently quite low due to the nature of the floor, the stal blockage has invaded much of the floor. The large slab like boulder on the right was broken up enough to expose the soil below, this should allow the floor to be lowered.

Around 10 skips of mainly rubble was removed to Talus.

Note: Mike Moxon investigated the unstable slope near the entrance - verdict: shoring is required.

Total time underground: 2.5 hours


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White Pit - 9th February 2011

Stu Gardiner, Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon & Pete Hellier

With the passage trending slightly to the right we set about removing boulders from the floor in an aim to enlarge the working area, plugs and feathers were used effectively and the floor was lowered.

The flow stone bank on the left of the passage is thought to be the result of the small inlet passage found in the roof recently, this has caused us to trend right, however once past this hopefully we shall be back on track.

The passage is still dipping at 45 degrees with obvious water worn roof pendants guiding us on. Around 10 skips were removed, mainly broken boulders and loose gravel / mud.

Total time underground: 3 hours

White Pit - 2nd Febuary 2011

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Jo Hardy and Hels Warren

Stu, you've been replaced! We got ourselves a younger and better looking substitute on our digging team! LOL
Initially clearing up about 7 skips of spoil created by Mark from his previous trips on sunday and monday breaking up quite a lot of a large boulder in the floor. Once the spoil had been cleared and hauled out, Jo and then Hels (on her first ever go at actually digging) had a go at hammering and chiselling at the stal at the end of the dig before Estelle went and drilled and plug and feathered (first removing the 2 Mark had left stuck in the rock from being greedy!) and then breaking most of that rock up, so now back to stal and mud digging mostly (until the next rock!). Dig is veering around to the right, but continuing to go down on around the 45 degree angle.

Total time underground: 2.5 hours

Whitepit - 26th January 2011

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Jo Hardy & Mike Moxon

Mike started off in the dig and managed to top up the part full skip and one more of stal and mud before his 35mins were up, then Estelle took over. In the was 3 large rocks with the stal/mud layers above and around it - the middle of the 3 rocks was levered and beaten until it submitted and broke into 3, mostly filling Estelle's 2 skips up! Mark then went in as it looked like time to get the drill into action and plug and feathers. He removed a bit of spoil that had been below the rock Estelle removed and then set to work drilling. 3 more skips removed and 2 plug and feathers left jammed in the rock after Mark bit off a little more than he could chew from the large floor rock...

Total time underground: 2.75 hours

Whitepit - 19th January 2011

Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Estelle Sandford, Bill Combley & Mike Moxon - Henry Dawson Joined later.

The large boulder in the floor was the soul focus of the evenings digging and with 3 drills fully charged and 2 new sets of wedge and feathers we set about breaking it up, to start with little progress was made, but within 30 minutes we were in full swing and the boulder was decreasing in size rapidly.  At the end of the evening only a very small section was left, however this is firmly wedged under the left hand wall, however it is not an obstruction so it is to be left in place for the foreseeable future.

The offending boulder is no more

With the boulder removed we are now left with mud, small rocks and the usual broken up stal in the floor.  All rocks and spoil were taken up to Talus and disposed of.

The dig face has become very wide and there is a slight worry that we may have lost the left hand wall - Time will tell, but we are still heading forwards and down.

Total time underground: 2.5 hours.