Subscribers should have received their issue in the post - please let us know if you haven't. For everyone else, the online version is now available for free download:
Anyone know who discovered the Sewer in Winnats Head cave and also Wigwam aven in the same place as I am just writing up a history of the cave. Oh yes and also who found the Harper Hill Series. Thanks
Isn't Winnats Head in Derbyshire not Yorkshire :-\
If so then the references in the 1991 version of Caves of the Peak District refer you to
DW Gill 1978 DCA Newsletter No 36 page 9
DW Gill 1978 BCRA Caves and Caving no 1 page 14
R Skorupka 1988 CDG Newsletter no 86 page 8
Actually there is more information in Iain Barker's Classic Caves of the Peak District.
Looks like Ben Bentham and others from Orpheus CC are the mainstays of the exploration.
There is even a reference to B Bentham - " Winnats Head Cave - Discovery and Exploration".
Crib the thing and save yourself loads of work.
For what it's worth, the initial breakthough into Winnats Head was made by Stuart Smith and yrs truly. We'd been digging the entrance crawl with Mr. Bentham but he wasn't there when it happened and was consequently as pissed off as only Ben could be on such an occasion, rest his soul.
Interesting. Was the next crawl behind the vertical slab and letter box blocked at the start or further down?
Winnats Head was my third trip into a cave and we sent a guy called Duncan (he was the thinnest) down the second crawl attached to a rope. The rope went slack and we pulled it back with no Duncan on the end . He called us to come through. We were all excited thinking we were the first in there and then on leaving we found a clipboard!
Goyd: if we're talking about the initial entrance bits of the cave, then the second crawl was indeed blocked part way and made for a very uncomfortable and wallowy dig, until it went. Hope this helps: it's a long time ago. Not my clipboard incidentally.
Thanks everyone I will update the history of Winnats Head soon using the info provided. Armchair: I bet it was a right wallow of a dig because I remember a slight trickle of water flows through the second crawl but nice when you saw main chamber eh!
Tsk tsk tsk, shame on you armchair. Fancy forgetting about the other 50% of the main chamber breakthrough team.
I don't think it was a dream? No in fact I remember Roy Sendor gallantly helping widen it for me to get through and did not
let exploration fever get the better of him, unlike the other two :spank: Chortle chortle
hmmm, well I am sure your memory is better than mine, but I was talking about the first entry into the main chamber which was a four man team, perhaps you are talking about somewhere nearer the entrance.
Sorry, old chap, but you're still wrong, not that it's of any real consequence. All that matters is that a rather interesting cave - which will hopefully one day extend much further - was discovered by some people (one or two of whom are no longer with us) sometime in the dim and distant past after a bit of a dig.
They say that Gingko Biloba helps...