Hi all,

Is there anybody here with information about digging efforts in Fatigue Pot, Coombs Dale.

I've had a look around there with a small group, we started to dig the east end based on rumour of a stream being heard beyond the bedding plane at times.

Since then I have spoken with a handful of people who report audible streams at either end of the cave in very wet conditions.

Just wondering who else has tried anything down there.

The entrance still smells for those that are curious but not curious enough to go there and inhale...

Tommy

Extracts from John Beck's diary

Saturday 1st March. 1975

I met Brian in the caf? at 10.00, and we headed for Fatigue Pot.

We didn?t ladder the pitch; free climbed down, and thrutched off along the long crawl. We reached the draughting boulder choke at the end, and Brian began to dig. We soon became a bit unnerved by the fact that he was on a boulder floor with air underneath, but we carried on, and soon appeared to have a rift below us.

I carried on digging, but just as I?d opened up the rift and we were marvelling at the draught, Brian received a deep cut when he trapped his little finger under a boulder.

We had to abandon the attempt and come out, with some difficulty as Brian only had three effective limbs to climb with. We made it eventually, and went to the caf?, where we got Brian temporarily patched up. He was despatched to Sheffield Hospital.

Sunday 9th March 1975.

Mark had to come and wake me, and we returtned to the caf?. Andy arrived. Chris, Keith, Mark and I set off for Coombs Dale, Andy giving Keith and Chris a lift. We headed for the dig at the end of Fatigue Pot.

Mark and I ended up in the rift passage, and we removed a number of awkward boulders. I was finally able to squeeze down, only to find that the floor was in fact of calcited boulders which blocked the continuation. An impenetrable hole was all that was left.

The pitch was too tight to bend down in, and after various frustrating attempts we gave up.  Pete and Mike arrived.  Keith and Chris left.  We inspected the left hand fork, and found a tantalising silt choke, which must be dug.

Saturday 15th March 1975.

Met Chris in the Lovers Leap at l0.00am, and we set off down Fatigue Pot. We went to the silt choke right at the end, and all went well for a while until we lit fags and caused a gruemome smog with visibility down to about 4 ft. Pete and Mike arrived, and we continued for a while until the air went foul and we gave up.

In these crawls, all the strike sections are pretty large but often silted, and still developed at the base of the Hobs House Coral Band (if this is what this coral horizon is). Where the passages turn down dip, they are wide and low, finally becoming impenetrable. Present day drainage must be at a very low level, as these passages lie some 50ft below the valley floor.

We carried out yet another investigation of the main rift, but couldn?t find much prospect. We emerged at about 5pm, and had a hilarious time in the mere (the cow muck one) washing off the thick mud.

I remember we spent some time digging in the various tubes but became less enthusiastic due to foul air

Thanks Mark, and I suppose thanks to John if it were possible to say.

John's diary comment on the modern drainage level presumably being very low is intriguing.

pwhole and I have had a brief email exchange were he educated me a little about a substantial layer of toadstone present in the surrounding area found by miners. I think I read on here that you worked in Sallet Hole, did you learn anything about the local geology in your time there that may be relevant?

This would support the notion that there may be developments at a lower level, and pwhole's mention about larger developments forming below the acidic layer certainly pricked up my ears, although my geological knowledge is naive and malnourished...

I find it comforting that I'm not the only one that hasn't been able to crouch down into that hole and have a proper look, perhaps the bottom of the rift needs shifting slightly...

Cheers!

One thing that puzzles me about that whole Coombs Dale/Calver area is that ostensibly, the geology is very similar to Castleton/Bradwell, at least toward the river, in that you have Eyam limestones steeply dipping under shale at a convenient altitude, and yet there's very little cave development in any of that rock right up to the top of Longstone Edge- just scraps here and there. I have found small fragments of a phreatic tube network within mine stopes, but we're talking body-sized tubes if they hadn't been blasted away, so not necessarily significant development. One geologist I asked suggested that the caves may well be there, but the shale cover is still too high - as in, they're  100m below surface and unreachable at present.

A lot of the Sallet Hole toadstone (clay, really) was more or less at adit level, from personal observation, but I didn't seen enough of the place to make any judgement before it was all plated up. A shame.

There'll be more on the geology of Longstone Edge in TDF's article that was in Mining History 18:3. It's not available on line at present so I'll scan the relevant pages later, if Phil doesn't beat me to it! John Hunter would also be able to tell you quite a bit about the geology and the toadstone beds there.

The John Beck diary extract is excellent reading, is the diary available to purchase?

It was John Hunter that I asked about the absence of cave development, funnily enough!

I'd forgotten about TDF's article actually - I'll dig it out,  though whether I'll get round to scanning it is another matter! Would we have permission to publish it? I'd assumed if it wasn't on the website yet, then it wasn't available anywhere in that form.

Here is an extract from Bary King's log book. This is held by the British Caving Library, and it is intended to add it to the Barry King archive some time.

Fatigue Pot

Late in 1957
E Pursehouse & two friends, B.King

Ernest Pursehouse, myself & two of his friends went to the cave on the right hand side of Coombs Dale, just past the dew pond, with a view to surveying the cave which myself & D.M.Forrester had previously visited. We got into the rift passage & surveyed about 120 feet past here in the "Bottom Crawl". We did not finish exploring.

December 1957
D.M.Forrester, B.Edey, B.King
                                                     
At a later date, myself, M.Forrester & B.Edey visited the cave hoping to finish the crawl. Weather at this time was extremely cold with very thick frost & a strong warm air current was issuing from the cave mouth. We got past the limit of exploration of the previous visit but were stopped about 100 feet later by a lowering of the already low roof.


March 1958
N.Crosby, B.King, J.Wragg
                                                     
Myself, J.Wragg & N.Crosby again entered the cave on a "pleasure" trip. Leaving Neil & Jackie in the bottom rift, I managed to get past the very low part & the passage continued in the same proportions. It was while continuing along this passage that the clamp on the accumulator packed up & I was forced to come back to the rift to repair it. We then left the cave.

langcliffe said:

Fatigue PotWe got into the rift passage & surveyed about 120 feet past here in the "Bottom Crawl". We did not finish exploring.

Click to expand...

This sounds a lot like the first crawl we went down (the second right in COPD), as this was reasonably low, it did have some interesting looking black slots to the side of the crawl and at the end on the right [but this could just link up with the first right?] was what looked like a tool for digging out the side.
I seem to remember [given mud on face and helmet] that most of the floor in the "second right" was mud, if so, we could get mattocks or crowbars at it and have a go at lowering it, seems like trying to get back to the left (and the main drag would be the best option?)

Edit:
PS isn't this a bit far south for you I'm sure you'd love the delights on offer

langcliffe said:

Well, I have never been south of Skipton, and I am now too old to have even that ambition...

Click to expand...

Sunday Morning Alastair?
I didn't go to the end of that passage with you guys so you know just how much lower/tighter it gets. Looking at the survey I doubt it would link directly to the stuff on the other right.

I've attached an image I put together highlighting a sink on the surface and the drainage ditches leading in to it.
The dew pond is perhaps a bit of a red herring, but as it has a small amount of wear on the downhill side from outflow. This suggests to me that this takes a fair amount of water at times (or did), which implies the ditch further up the hill takes even more to that boggy sink, where does that then go? Water audible at either circled end... I haven't wished for hard rain for a long time, give us something sky!

The SUSS library will be raided shortly for relevant journals and piece some things together with the information from these posts, although I gather there isn't a huge amount to go on as it's only a small and infrequently visited place.

Any copies of articles (if they can be distributed) would be very much appreciated

Thanks all!

yellow circle passage= "second right" as per Caves of Peak district (must not abbreviate)
Green circle passage= "first Right" as per Caves of Peak district
orange= 'delightful' entrance

I do think the second right needs a second look with some dedicated digging equipment (ie not drills, rods, caps, Plugs and Feathers) more like Mattocks, Crowbars and Spades?
no point having another look without these. A team of 4 could make a serious dent, am in York for a mates birthday this weekend.

for clarity I'll copy and paste my description on how to find the entrance.

http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=7971.msg247548#msg247548

alastairgott said:

Dredging up an old subject...

Mr chapman a few months ago suggested i find fatigue, i've not yet been in.

I had a few moments to spare last saturday to sample the pungent smell of the entrance. after 30+minutes we did manage to find the hole, but could have found it much quicker...

We parked near the calver crossroads [polly froggatt lane] and walked back towards stoney middleton.
Taking the first left turn off the main road marked as a public footpath (which is a track, only passable on foot).
Follow the track for quite a while, after the childrens playground you'll pass a wooded section on the right and then it will open out into fields again. Once you see the fields again, it wont be far till you find a stile which leads into the field. Go into this field and turn left, keeping the fence on your left keep wandering till there is a metal farm gate leading back to the lane. Turn your back to this gate so that you're facing the hillside.
When we were there, there was a petrified tree on the hillside just to the left (about 15 to 30 degrees), this lines up with fatigue pot. Fatigue is about 2m behind this tree.
(Really not far up the hillside, if you're going all the way to the top of the hill you're looking too hard).

Click to expand...

A petrified tree is one that looks almost dead, like driftwood standing!

edit: ps. there's also this but I think the description is more useful. http://thedca.org.uk/dca-cr/registry/sitedetails.php?id=88

A couple of interesting features further down dale,

At the up dale end of the rubbish tip, where a path goes back left, about 50mtrs up on the right is an embayment with a draughting boulder filled rift.

Just beyond the same path, on the left hand side of the main track, a large amount of water was seen flowing from a pile of large boulders, during one of the big floods.

langcliffe said:

Here is an extract from Bary King's log book. This is held by the British Caving Library, and it is intended to add it to the Barry King archive some time.

Click to expand...

A full transcript of Barry King's log book in PDF format is now available here. A description of other material in the Barry King collection can be found here.

Mark said:

A couple of interesting features further down dale,

At the up dale end of the rubbish tip, where a path goes back left, about 50mtrs up on the right is an embayment with a draughting boulder filled rift.

Just beyond the same path, on the left hand side of the main track, a large amount of water was seen flowing from a pile of large boulders, during one of the big floods.

Click to expand...

And a couple up dale, just before the dale opens out.

Both on the right near an old building is a 1.5m wide rift/adit/excavation - don't know if the back has collapsed but it seems to go further back.

And just a few meters down dale from said building is a circular(ish) depression thats looks like it could be an old shaft, but also to the hill side of the depression is a small void going back into the natural.

Langcliffe.
The Barry King Fatigue Pot and Carlswark Cavern description makes good reading.....

Although so much has since been added onto the map of the system in the Eyam Edge - Stoney Middleton area Barrie's writings continue to inspire the search for more.

Thank you Langcliffe for preserving and digitising so much material.
Richard.

richardg said:

Thank you Langcliffe for preserving and digitising so much material.

Click to expand...

Thank you, but I am a mere technician. The real people who deserve the credit in this case are Jenny Potts, who works ceaselessly for the library organising this and other material,  and Barry's family who donated it. But I will admit to being a bit of a enthusiast as far as this stuff is concerned. We owe almost everything to our predecessors, and they should be remembered.

langcliffe said:

richardg said:

Thank you Langcliffe for preserving and digitising so much material.

Click to expand...

Thank you, but I am a mere technician. The real people who deserve the credit in this case are Jenny Potts, who works ceaselessly for the library organising this and other material,  and Barry's family who donated it. But I will admit to being a bit of a enthusiast as far as this stuff is concerned. We owe almost everything to our predecessors, and they should be remembered.

Click to expand...

here here

or hear hear even

Relevant extract from the Mining History article:

Thanks for all of the input guys, I've got a copy of the relevant Eldon Journal (Volume 9 no. 2, 1976), and will be shortly be going for a walk to check out the features up and down dale.

Marked on this map are a few shafts and adits, a couple of natural pots (25 and 15 ft), and just near Shepherds mine on the path dogleg is a 100 ft cave, this isn't in COPD or the registry, anyone know about that? (I'll see it today anyway).

The article makes for inspiring reading if anyone has not yet had the pleasure.

Watch this space.