Of all the levels that we had a looked at today, this was the most
inviting - adit open, gate visible. As I took some photographs Pete made his
was in, which was quickly accompanied by various curses. The gate it turns out,
forces you to go on hands and knees, insuring a good dousing in very cold
water.
We made our way in and shortly came to a branch on the right,
this was ignored and we carried on in. The level had stone walls and most of
the roof was solid rock. The floor looked to be a bedding plane and with the
water flowing over it, it looked very impressive. Carrying on, we passed
another branch, this time on the left. This one was half back filled and backed
up with water. Passing this, we carried on until we hit a four way branch. With
the water flowing and the silt built up, along with tonnes of pine needles the
level gave a strange feeling - almost like being inside a beavers lodge. Pete
had a look up the passage heading straight on, whilst I got the camera gear
out. He came back shortly, informing me that it went on, but you would have to
crawl through lots of silt and cold water. We then took the left hand branch
and this led to a working face. Along the way we found what we thought was a
flange, (unless it is a rotted tin that has fallen in on itself) a very old tin
of Crown paint and near the end of the branch a stick of
dynamite.
Returning back to the junction Pete had a look to the right,
and came back with the same conclusion as with the striaght branch - silt and
cold water. Time pressing on, we headed out for the portal, however when we
came to the first branch, an air current was noticed - I did not fancy having a
look, so Pete went in for a ganders. After a while he came back to say the
passage hit another parallel level and at one end he could see day light - from
what we had seen today, that could only have been the North 3 Level, unless our
bearings are very wrong. |
