I love what has been done in eldon! Will digging ever start back up again there do you know?
Some of the conditions placed on us to be able to continue the dig included only digging down in 200mm sections, as opposed to up to 1m deep sections that we were easily achieving on a good day. We then had to make a 3D scan of the dig for each 200mm of depth removed. Once the rubble was hauled into the main chamber we had to select any human looking bone samples from the many, many animal bones found in the dig, some of which were also found to be Late Iron Age, give them a basic clean with a special brush and log exactly what had been found in each 200mm section. The bones then had to be brought out of the cave and hand delivered by us to Buxton Museum where they would be logged and then sent off to either Birmingham or Nottingham for analysis. Once this was completed we would then have to wait for them to give us the OK, or not, to dig out the next 200mm.
Our digging team had little or no interest in archeology and we certainly weren't interested in the slightest in actually having to become trainee archeologists. Heaven forbid. Neither could we find an archeologist who had the slightest interest in becoming a cave digger, let alone one who would be happy to be on every digging trip, bend the rules 'a lot' on the 200mm and be able to tolerate what would likely be a never-ending stream of poor archeology puns from the rest of the team, and don't forget the 3D scanning every 200mm!
It's been 8 years since we first made the discovery of possible 'national importance'. Despite offering to take an archeologist down there when we first found the bones It took over 4 years before we could finally get the authorities to visit the site. DCRO provided their access and egress of the main shaft and the Buttered Badgers installed suitable safety measures for them to get to the bottom of the dig shaft and carry out their survey of how we could proceed. Our digging methodology was explained to them in great detail and, despite the looks on their faces suggesting they didn't really want to be there, we were encouraged by some that a positive outcome would soon follow.
More than 12 months later, and only then after some badgering (sorry), they finally came up with the plan as mentioned above. They clearly paid no attention to the practicalities of the dig and were likely only ever going to give us the standard archeological digging requirements that anyone else would have been given. Some people just don't like change. That's when we finally gave up on it and moved back to exploring the far reaches of Rowter Hole, and with some success.
I'm realistic enough to know that it would probably take a few more than a couple of trips before there was a significant breakthrough at the bottom of Eldon Hole, but maybe not that many more?
If you've been to the bottom of the shaft you will know the dig eats up a lot of scaffold tubes, fittings and boards, with significant amounts of tube and fittings used to make the doglegs. There could be more doglegs ahead. It's also eaten up a lot of diggers over the years. Due to the scale of the endeavour it was started up as a joint venture between the Buttered Badgers and the Eldon PC. About 4 months into the project and only the Badgers were left standing. I think Team Awesome were only just out of nappies at this time.
We were lucky to be able to get significant discounts on all the digging materials but it was still an expensive project. I've seen scaffolder's yards in Sheffield with less tubing on their racks than what is down Eldon Hole.
Because of all the doglegs it now needs a good sized digging team to make it efficient, and you're only likely to get those on a weekend, and only then if you have luck on your side. Towards the end, our midweek evening trips were more often taking in fresh scaffold tubes, fittings and boards or doing some tidying up of tubes and boards before the bigger weekend trips.
We would all love to get back digging in there. Unfortunately, for that to happen, the current powers-that-be would either need to have a complete change in policy, which is not very likely, or retire and be replaced with younger people who are not stuck in the Late Iron Age and may look at things differently. This is our hope. We are not holding our breaths.
You never know, we may have a back way into it from Rowter Hole next month.
