Chelms Coombe Caving Club

[ttolyaj]

I was told you wanted information about the Chelms Coombe Caving Club, and possibly the caves found in the quarry, well I can help.
The club was formed in 1969 by Frank Reynolds, I joined in 1972, the club had few members mostly employees at the test centre, but we were very active  and were involved in many digs across the Mendips. I have all the logs still from the club although I no longer cave I still have a keen interest in caving. If you go to the link below you will find a few pictures of the caves. At that time I did not know what lay in store for the quarry but I believe Cerbus have access if they still control fairy quarry caves ( not certain on that though), and hopefully some access will be possible and those early leads we found can be followed up.
By the way if you want to know who I am read my name backwards.

http://flickr.com/photos/20975441@N02/2089136752/

[Peter Burgess]

From JRat's log:

Chelm’s Combe Quarry Cave
Box Cave
Reynold’s Rift
25/6/82
John Aylott, Rod, Dave (NTTSCC) Rachel, Quackers.   

Three interesting “collector’s items” in the National Tower Testing Station Quarry. Chelm’s Combe Quarry Cave and Box Cave are both extremely well decorated – the latter with a fairly large chamber. Reynold’s Rift is tight and wet-ish with a desperate dig in a choked sump at its bottom. How the hell John manages to drill 3’ slotholes down here I will never know! Nice to wash off in the firm’s own washroom after the trip.

[Cookie]

I have all the logs still from the club although I no longer cave I still have a keen interest in caving.

The Mendip Cave Registry and Archive have a project to scan club log books so that they are not lost to posterity.  We also hope to make them available to all on-line.

You can see we have the Axbridge Log Books and Tony Jarratt's Log Books here http://www.mcra.org.uk/logbooks/

Your club's log books sound interesting since the club was actively involved in Mendip digs. They should be scanned, particularly if the club is no longer active.

Would you consider it?

[andymorgan]

This is the original thread http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php/topic,4759.0.html

There is an article about the Chelm's Combe Caves in the last issue of Descent (205, page17). ATLAS are negotiating access according the article.

[ttolyaj]

I would certainly be happy for the logbooks to be scanned, mind you the hand writing maybe a bit spiderlike. But they are part of Mendip History I guess. Contact me by email at ttolyaj@btinternet.com and we can work something out. I don't want to lose them as you can imagine especially as I wrote most of it. I should say it all in one logbook rather than yearly editions.