Saturday 29th June 2019

John Cooper, Pete Hann and Adrian Vanderplank. Capping kit and 1 mix of cement taken in. Pete used half the mix at the bottom whilst John used the other half walling alcoves for later use in spoil dumping. Adrian did some clatch dumping in an alcove at the bottom before he moved down to do some capping. More of both required. 2½ hours. John.

Saturday 1st June 2019

John Cooper, Pete Hann, Adrian Vanderplank and Jude Vanderplank. Adrian and Pete to the bottom capping the alcove. John and Jude carried 1 mix of cement down. The alcove was proved not to be the way on and the cement was used walling at the bottom. The draught is coming up through the floor. 3 hours. John.

Saturday 18th May 2019

John Cooper, Pete Hann, Adrian Vanderplank, Jude Vanderplank and Barry Wilkinson. One mix of cement taken down. With Pete and Jude at the dig face we started hauling rocks from the bottom to the bottom stacking space. The Adrian replaced Jude so he could do some capping. The rest of us moved the spoil from the bottom stacking space to the top stacking space and finally hauled it, 12 loads, to the surface. 2½ hours. John.

Saturday 11th May 2019

John Cooper, Pete Hann, Adrian Vanderplank and Barry Wilkinson. One mix of cement taken down. Adrian capping watched by the rest of us. Finally a few loads of rock moved up to an alcove. More capping and cement required. Seems to be dropping quite quickly at present. 3½ hours. John.

An audience with Pete and John. Photo by AV.

Saturday 4th May 2019

John Cooper, Nigel Graham, Pete Hann and Adrian Vanderplank. Adrian on a fire brigade shout so we first cleared the top stacking space, Pete loading, me on the Naughty Step and Nigel on the surface. 50 minutes later (17 loads), the spoil was cleared and Adrian had arrived and sent to the bottom to start capping. Left Nigel on the surface as nothing to do below. Adrian capped rock until Pete could fit through a gap but as he wasn’t sure he could get back we left it for next time. Had to use a magnet to recover crowbar and capping bar from crack in floor! 3¾ hours. John.

Saturday 20th April 2019

John Cooper, Nigel Graham, Pete Hann, Adrian Vanderplank, Jude Vanderplank and Barry Wilkinson. Pete and Jude to the bottom with a mix of cement to do walling. The rest of us cleared spoil from the bottom stacking space to the top stacking space then, once that was done, moved on down and started to fill it up again. At the end we moved on up and cleared the top stacking space to the surface, 22 loads. Pete reckons another good cementing session now required. 3¼ hours. John.

Saturday 13 April 2019

 

Wayne Starsmore near the top alcoves. Photo by AV.