Martin Critchley had contacted me about meeting up in Nenthead for
a trip with Roy Fellows to see the exploration and work Roy and Ian Hebson had
done in the early 1990's in Caplecleugh High Level. For those who may not be
aware, Roy Fellows and Ian Hebson were responsible for gaining access and
discovering a large area of new ground in the Caplecleugh complex. Over a
number of years they climbed every rise and explored flats, eventually this
lead to them breaking into the High Level - the first explorers to do so since
the closure of the mine. The work carried out by Roy and Ian was a major
undertaking and they accomplished a great deal in accessing previously
unreachable areas, often at great risk to themselves.
We all gathered in
the NPHT car park at 10.00, and by 10.30 had entered the Caplecleugh Horse
Level adit. After an hour or so we reached the Toilet Box junction, by this
point the party had split up. To avoid loosing time, Steve stayed at the
junction to direct the others when they caught up. The others and myself
carried on, our goal was Archers Rise, and to gain entry to this we had to
climb into a sub level and then into stopes, some 16m above the Caplecleugh
Horse Level. From the stope we where able to gain access to Archers Rise - it
was wet and muddy. Roy SRT'ed up first, followed by Paul, then myself, Karli
and Pete. Climbing the rise had to be done in two stages, the first part was a
straight SRT up, about 15m. At this point an intersection with a small working
was reached. From the intersection the rise angled a bit and the next stage was
to climb up the slope and a manway to the top some 30m on, via a handline.
Whilst waiting for the person in front to complete their part of the climb, you
get a chance to look at the surroundings. The top half of Archer'S Rise was no
too bad and the ladders in place seemed sturdy enough, however the bottom half
was far more worrying. The ore shoot side of the rise had been filled in, and
the wooden partition wall to keep it in place had long rotted and fallen away -
nothing but fresh air and maybe a bit of calcification keeping it in. Hopefully
it was well compacted! At the top of the rise we arrived at a sublevel. During
Roy's and Ian's exploration they had to carry out a dig here to continue on.
Passing through it you entered sound passage way, with wooden ventilation
trunking snaking away into the distance. A short walk along the passage took us
to a small crosscut and from here a further SRT some 5m up brought us into
Caplecleugh High Level - we had arrived.
The first thing that hit us was
that the air current here was very strong, Roy had mentioned before that this
was one of the coldest parts in the mine. Whilst waiting for the others to
catch up we had a quick look down the west end of the level until we reached
Archer's Vein. Here the level carried on and you could get to within 400m of
Longholehead Whimsey, however the route was through some very bad collapses and
bad air. Not altogether pleasant prospects. It was also possible to take the
southern branch here along Archer's Vein. We returned to the sump which gained
us access to the High Level and found that everyone had arrived. All of the
party then headed east. The level at this point was in good condition apart
from a few falls. Along the way we passed many sumps and a few rises. After the
falls the water level became deeper and eventually we where up to chests in
parts. Along the level we went past a dogleg junction, which from plans looks
like it would have led to the Black Ashgill Cross Vein, then we passed the turn
off to Baisbecks Crosscut. After a while we started passing sumps that had
concrete dams put up in front of them, the work of the Vieille Montagne Zinc
Company. Some of the sumps where flooded and some open. We passed a branch that
led to Bogg Shaft and the part of the High Level that it accessible from
Smallcleugh on the other side of a fall. Eventually we reached another dogleg
junction, that is not shown on the VM abandonment plans, however it is shown on
the LLC working plans.
At this junction the party split up, Martin,
Steve, Sharron and Brian carried on ahead to reach the start of the concrete
arching to see the graffiti that the last VM surveyors had written. The
remainder of us went down the dogleg branch, past a large rise and then into
some deep water, shortly the passage ended and we climbed up a rather wet rise
some 8m high. This gained us entry into a sublevel above Caplecleugh High in
the Little Limestone. We explored one side of the sublevel and then climbed up
into some small workings above. Here we had a bit of a look around and then
Karli and myself had lunch. Roy and Paul went back to the rise we had climbed
up. After lunch we dropped back down from the working and joined Roy. Paul had
gone back down to the High Level and the others where starting to come up.
Crossing the rise we had a wonder in the other direction of the sublevel until
we reached a laddered rise, from here we retraced our route to the High Level.
Pete had his lunch, and then it was our turn to go and see the
graffiti.
From the dogleg junction we had to climb over some very large
blocks of shale, after this the passage became clear and was in good condition.
Again we passed many sumps that had been concrete walled. After a few 100m, we
reached a section of passage that was in a very bad state. Shale was hanging by
threads off the roof and the floor was littered with debris - not a nice area
to pass though. The passage was like this all the way to the graffiti. Finally
we spotted the concrete arching and knew we had got to our destination. Here we
saw the dates and part of a hymn that had been written down by the VM
surveyors. Photographs were taken and we retraced our route back. We noticed
that there was no air movement in this area and only after passing a sump or
rise did the air flow start again. We reached the dogleg junction and found Roy
waiting for us there.
Retracing our route we eventually reached the sump
to take us back down to the sublevel at the top of Archers Rise. We all made
our way down and finally had a group photo in the flats above the Caplecleugh
Horse Level. The other part of the party had long since gone on and they had
exited via Smallcleugh doing the Double Rise through trip. Another hour and we
where back out at the portal, an exhausting 9 hour trip. A big thanks to Roy
for being our guide, and to Martin for giving us the opportunity to come on
this trip. |
