United Cavers Exploration Team

Box Stone Quarry, Box, Wiltshire.

Visited with, AndyJ, Jay, LesW, Richard T, Frank T.

Massive thanks to Les and Frank for taking the time to show us around.

If anyone reading this is interested in visiting the quarry, I would recommend you take someone with you who knows the place, or at a minimum buy a survey which is available from the quarrymans pub, as is the key to get in, there really is no need at all to break in which so many people seem to do.

Our trip started at around 8.30am at the wessex caving club bunk house, we had arranged to meet Les, but we had been told that there wouldn't be a chance of Les turning up on time, but he did, well almost! We then headed over to Box where we had arranged to meet Richard at 9.30, he was there waiting for us when we arrived, we were just about ready when Frank turned up, at 10am we were entering the quarry through “jacks passage”, I've no real idea of the route we took, we got to see several of the 20 odd remaining cranes, we also saw the red doors, cathedral, fish well, the robots and we eventually exited through “back passage” the trip took just over 9 hours. The quarry is just filled with workers graffiti some of it really good, there are also LOADS of saw benches and saws as well as sharpening tools.

Every now and again, while you are in the quarry/mine, you can hear the trains passing under you in the tunnel, and you can feel the place vibrate. There are lots of areas where the roof has become the floor and I suspect this is aggravated by the trains passing under the tunnel.

When we had finished our trip, we exited through back passage, then as is customary went for a swift half in the quarrymans pub.

9 Hours underground, no problems. All in all a superb day out

There are a LOAD more pictures here - http://www.dspexplores.com/#/?p=422