It was summer 1955. We decided to meet up again the following Easter at Ingleton. So in 1956, after exploring a few caves around Ingleton and Clapham, we decided to form ourselves into a proper group. It was August-September 1956 we held a meeting in the Wheatsheaf Hotel, Ingleton.
Some time in 1965 Mick Ormerod and Mick Melvin had wandered up to Austwick Beck Head with diving gear, to assess the prospects.
John at the cave entrance. Note skateboard; useful to roll along on, whilst lying down with 40 kg+ of equipment!
In the early 1980s this obvious resurgence for all the Allotment potholes was on my own radar; a group of us went there but we were repulsed too. I vowed to go back for a better look but the ownership changed and the new incumbent wouldn’t give permission. It festered in my brain until 2021, when it came to our attention that there was a new farmer; we went to see him and, after all those years of waiting, it was game on! In fact he’s been extremely helpful and we’re really grateful.
Duncan Smith getting ready before a dive in February 2025.
I invited fellow CDG Northern Section member Duncan Smith to share the project and we’ve been diving there ever since, when the visibility has been good enough. It’s one of the slowest clearing dive sites in the Dales and good vis is the exception rather that the rule.
Final preparations before heading into the cave.
A difficult section finally eases 130 m into the sump, then easy swimming reaches a junction 197 m from base. To the left is Gothic Passage, currently 168 m long and heading first west then more northerly. It passes close to a 60 m diameter sediment filled (i.e. pre-glacial) shakehole around 100 m away. This is likely to have old, dry passages below it, so we may surface soon. The other way on (known as the Original Route) has been followed up a shaft, along a fine tubular section, to a series of small pots descending to 10 m depth. Just past here a sandbank across the passage stopped play at 425 m from base. We need to re-check this area as there is likely to be an alternative way on. The overall length of the cave is currently 723 m (mid March 2025).
Duncan returns to the welcome sunshine after a long dive.
Six decades ago, in the Wanderers’ heyday, there were so many open dive sites in the Dales. I don’t blame Mick and Mick for deciding to use their air in other underwater caves, back in the 1960s. But time moves on, many of the open sumps in the Dales have been well explored now, so to break new ground you have to be much more determined. I bet Jim Cunningham never envisaged the teenager he kindly introduced to caving would one day be wrestling underwater boulders and deviating around sump monsters to get back out! But that’s where it all started for me, when Jim kindly oversaw our earliest caving adventures.
John Cordingley