Willets Lane, Mendip

Sid

Member
Willets Lane Hole solo digging final chapter (at least until the summer...) on Valentine's day 2018


With more drilling & P&F I made it into the final chamber about 8m or so below the historic lower chamber. It was very wet on Mendip in the Chewton Mendip area and the cave was very drippy & damp.
The final chamber exit route, now Valentine's Chamber almost sumps, and I considered it wise not to venture solo, but perhaps re-visit in the summer.
Crack Pot Rift is now some 6m long and descends about 3m or so along its length. The final chamber is now entered through a generous squeeze (opened up by P&F) and is 1.5m high, 1m wide and 2.5 m long and it takes a very small stream from the base of Crack Pot Rift. The water pools at floor level and the roof drops at one end to about 12" above the water, this may dry up in summer. The narrow rift does continue but it needs two people rather than solo and drier weather to push further.

All in all this digging episode in loose mud and large rocks has finally achieved a length of stable passage, albeit pretty short. Overall the cave has about 44m of passage now and a depth of 20m.

Andy W

Four photos at

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mendipcaveregistryarchive/26423644668/in/dateposted-public/
 

The Old Ruminator

Well-known member
Thanks " Sid ". More cave less politics I say. Is that lovely scaffolding I see ? You must be a fellow admirer. Good link over to Flickr.
 

jbaer

New member
Interesting cave, discovered by quarrying in 1931.  Anybody got a survey.  Will save getting my boots muddy.
 
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