Peak Cavern.
Mel
Penn from Stockport Caving Club owed me a few favours
so I asked him to arrange a trip down Peak Cavern.
“Sunday, 10.00am. in Castleton main car park - it’s the last
one for the Year”.
Peak Cavern is situated in the centre of Castleton in Derbyshire. The cave is
owned by the Duchy of Lancaster and is run as a show cave from March until
October each year. T.S.G. (Technical Speleological Group) handle
access arrangements for cavers on behalf of B.C.R.A.
It
was all being arranged in a hurry so I started to make phone calls - lots of
interest but Derbyshire just seems to much to far to some people so I ended up
with a motley crew of me and Keith Wright, two from Rotherham
C.C. and three from Stockport C.C.
What they ‘don‘t tell you’ is the access rigmarole. Sundays only, then you have
to report to ‘the TSG hut - it looks like a garage - then you hive to sign a
disclaimer to the Duchy of Lancaster (an INDEMNITY CHIT) – then this has to be
witnessed - then you pay your 10p fee. TSG send one of their lot in to check
the water level and he comes back and says it’s OK - we are go for peak.
All
the gear is carried up to the show cave through the first iron
gate and you get changed actually in the show cave entrance. It’s the
biggest cave entrance I’ve ever seen. It’s just like a cliff face. There’s a
jolly atmosphere about getting changed all along the walkway. All this grunting
and groaning as these past it middle aged cavers tried to stuff themselves into
wetsuits. Corsetts and condom words abounded.
Eventually
we are all stuffed in our suits and are walking down the wide concrete path
through the second iron gate and into the show cave
proper. The entrance chamber is 330ft. x 102ft. x 60ft high. Still following
the visitors path by the river Styx to the
Upstream leads to a high impressive passage to triple water falls at Squaw
Junction and Wigwam Aven. Eventually having climbed various boulder piles we
reach the far sumps. When the sump was first dived it went for 1300ft. and when
the diver got out beyond the sump he found footprints - eventually this was sussed out as some old mine workings that had been blocked
off and forgotten about near Speedwell Cavern.
So we make our way back poking about in all the side passages - Keith managed
to brag and free dived an 8ft. sump with a guide line. The rest took a Pippikin
type by pass.
At
one point in a passage we met this T.S.G. guy who was very involved in plumbing
a bedding plane water supply and piping it into clay block passages and hosing
them clean. We were very impressed with the level of caving engineering from
the T.S.G., but that happens to be their forte.
(Why
don’t we do something like this,
obvious places for a hydraulic ram would be the far blocked passage in the
Maple Leaf area of the Earby Series). Eventually we
are approaching the show cave series and the iron gates and it’s
grunting and groaning ourselves out of our wetsuits. Later we all went for posh
cream teas in Castletons up market Bernies - ever so twee.
Jim Birchall.