Maintenance and replacement of fences, gates and stiles is one of the less well known services that DCA can provide to landowners that permit access to caves and mines on their land. Today, Officers Scott and Pete have been on the Oakover Estate replacing the gate to the permitted parking area for Waterways Swallet. The old gate was well overdue for a swap and we have done this at no cost to the farmer. More pictures on the DCA Facebook Page.

NB for cavers - ground conditions here are very boggy right now and some further car park maintenance is planned later this month to stop cavers getting cars stuck.

https://peakdistrictcaving.info/home/the-caves/hamps-manifold/waterways-swallet

Great work DCA!

We had a trip to Waterways last year and having that small grassy area to park in is a real benefit as I seem to remember it was a fairly busy road. The old gate was just about knackered. It's a really quirky trip where you can get to quite a significant depth but without any tacklesacks. I can strongly recommend it (we combined it with a fine summer weekend at the Orpheus Caving Club hut).   

Be aware - it does flood though and various members of the Eldon got stranded the wrong side of the flood for a while till it subsided.

Sound advice SamT; Does the surface stream ever reach (and presumably flow down) the entrance, or does the flooding issue occur further underground?

Boyd and I surveyed the first part of the cave in 1971 - down as far as the gallery where it ended in a dig at that time.  We also did the water tracing which proved it came out underwater in the river at Ilam, on the outside of the bend opposite Paradise Walk.  I never saw the stream flowing down to enter the swallet - even in pretty wet weather it always seemed to sink under the base of the bramble bush where the footpath crosses the field boundary - but I have been told that it can, under extreme conditions - flow down right down to the sink.

Don't forget that the correct route to the cave from the car park is back out into the road, walk a short distance along towards Blore then use the marked footpath to cross the field where the cave is, past the big shake-hole, then turn left along the field boundary to reach the cave in the hollow.  There is a stile over the fence by the cave - don't forget to replace the grid over the cave when you leave.  All the details are on the DCA website at
https://peakdistrictcaving.info/home/the-caves/hamps-manifold/waterways-swallet

Matt's right - it is a smashing little cave.

Cavematt said:

Sound advice SamT; Does the surface stream ever reach (and presumably flow down) the entrance, or does the flooding issue occur further underground?

Click to expand...

Not sure about the actual entrance itself, but I think some of the narrower stuff before it breaks out into the big chambers gets impassable in wet weather.  (Only ever been down once myself and it was a long time ago now!!)