Bagshawe Cavern, Bradwell, Derbyshire - Jan 2012

[Danny Sutton]

Bagshawe cavern, Derbyshire, 11/1/2013

Visited with AndyJ (cpc)

I had booked the day off work as I was attending the UCET AGM the day before and I expected to be home late, as I wasn’t in work, I wasn’t going to waste a day at home with the family, I gave Andy a shout and asked him if he fancied anything.

He had a couple of things in Derbyshire he wanted to do, this been one of them, but as this trip requires a permit and it was already dinner time the day before, we didn't hold out for much chance of getting one, but I left it to Andy to decide what we were doing as he was as usual driving.

All I knew for sure is that Andy was picking me up at 9am which he did. When he turned up I was a mess, I had literally had 90mins sleep in the front seat of a car, but I expected it to be a wet trip and figured this would wake me up, this plus I went to the shop and spent £11 on redbull, so all was good.

I threw my gear into Andys car and off we went, I asked where we were going and he said here, he had managed to get us a permit, but he couldn’t get us a guide for the gated areas on such short notice, if you are not aware, some areas of the cave/mine system are gated and can only be accessed with a guide in an attempt to preserve them.

After a short detour to Giants hole on the way, so we could have a look at something, we arrived at Bagshawe cavern, it's a strange set-up, with a building/changing room built on the entrance to the system, you get into the cave/mine via a door inside the building.

We kitted up and went in, we had herd there would be several trolls and goblins in here, so as to be on the safe side, we decided we should probably take a scythe as our weapon of choice. Andy was concerned that this could cause damage to the ropes, but I didn’t care, I was taking no chances.

On entering the system, you are greeted with a long steep stair case which leads you down, down, down... We did have a survey with us, but there was a very obvious way on, which we followed, we eventually came to the top of the Dungeon pitch, we decided to rig this now then go and explore the rest of this level, come back and have a look down here later, which we did.

Then off we went, we followed the obvious route which led us the glory hole, we jibbed down here to have a look around, then headed back up, we then came to a gated area, NOW... the gate could have been passed, but as we had applied for and gotten a permit, which both UCET and CPC were named on, we decided we probably shouldn’t go for a looksee, which we didn’t..

we then continued the obvious route which came to a partially filled sump which was easily passable with a good 12” of head room, I dumped my camera here as I was losing the will to live dragging it about, passing this brings you to a long silted passage which in turns brings you to an active stream way, we had a look to the left which ends in a sump, no continuation was indicated on the survey, so we headed back upstream which was hard work against the flow of water, the water then vanishes and you continue via a crewel which ranges from hand and knees to flat out, but it is very wide, in then starts to get a bit higher, but it also starts to get wet, the fact there is a dive line fastened to the roof in this passage would indicare that it could get a lot wetter than it was.

The survey showed the passage ends in a sump not much further, so I stopped, Andy been in love with water continued, the water at this point was about 2ft deep with around 6in of air space above, he wasnt gone long before he came back, we then headed back the way we came to the pitch that we had rigged earlier, so down we went, again leaving the camera gear at the top, which was just as well, from the bottom of the pitch was a crawel in water, the water started at around 12” deep and eventually became 3 â€" 4 ft deep, the air space above ranged from a foot to less than 3 inchs, meaning there were sections that we were having to be fully submerged to pass, I eventually reached a air space where I could stand up, Andy continued for a fair distance, At this point we decided as there was only 2 of us on the trip, and there had been reports of “bad air” in the signing in book in this area, that we shouldn’t continue, it would of probably of been ok, but we chose to head back, we got to the rope, headed up and back to the bottom of the stairs, here was a path into the mine workings with a big keep out sign!

As said earlier, as a permit had been applied for in the 2 clubs names, we definitely did not go down here and see the interesting looking hole in the floor to the mine workings, or the deads stacked up above  our heads held up by hopes and dreams, quite possibly the most sketchy mine passage that I have never been down.

We then headed back up and out, it was nice to have a nice building to shelter in while getting changed.

Trip time was 5.5 hours underground, SRT or ladder required for the pitch, very wet trip with full submersion in sections. There is a trespass fee of £2 per person, IMO well worth it for the shelter to get changed in

Huge thanks to Andy for sorting the permit, driving and rigging

some pics -