• Home > Group Documentation > Journal > 2006 >  TEMPLETON - December 2005 to May 2006

  by Elaine Johnson 

At the end of my last Templeton report I confidently predicted that we would soon see a change as the North half of the dig had narrowed down to about a foot wide. I was sure that a jammed boulder or two would appear and reveal void underneath. Caverns measureless to man etc would surely follow. Wrong! I didn't consider the other alternative, which was that the North half of the dig has narrowed to only a few inches wide and we have abandoned that section. This has had the effect of reducing the digging space to only about 12 feet by 4 feet wide at its largest dimensions.

As we get deeper, it becomes even more essential that we keep the dig as safe as we can, and this includes making sure the walls of the dig are ‘cleaned' as best as possible. Sometimes this requires levering off large slabs of rock from the wall that are not secure. Some such rocks were discovered in November, large fluted rocks, two or three of which could be made to wobble a little when a bar was wedged behind them so they had to go. They were in the east wall of the dig, and were a couple of feet above floor level when the decision had been made to dispose of them. This is less straight forward than it sounds, as although these rocks do not take much persuasion to come away from the walls, there is nowhere safe to stand whilst doing it. Usually the levering is done with a bar from as far away as the ‘leverer' can stand and still reach. A bit awkward, but the only safe way. One of the prised-off boulders was too large to break up by hand so we put a snapper in it, which sorted it out!

The new winch drum extension is working well, though it does rub on the metal that has been added. We will have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't wear anything away.

In December the rail track was extended several extra feet and a NHASA platform installed - and as often happens, the skip is filled by someone standing on this platform.

December 7^th 2005. Hugh's 40^th birthday, and he spent the evening with me on the spoil heap in the rain levelling heaps of rocks and boulders left there by the dumper. Who needs candlelit dinners eh?!

December 21^st, the last dig before Christmas, so in true NHASA style we adjourned to the top of the dig in the cold, after digging, to eat mince pies, cakes and drink sherry. Yum! I accidentally had more than my fair share!

With such a small digging face (compared to what we have been used to) there is not much room for many to be at the bottom of the dig anymore. There was a time a few years ago when 10 could be digging and passing at the same time. Now there is about room for three, with also one or two needed to stand on the NHASA platforms as necessary. In January the

rail track was extended to just lower than 120 feet below the field level. Hugh and I are invariably the last to turn up on Wednesdays and there is rarely any room for us to go to the bottom to help. Therefore we have to amuse ourselves by playing on the spoil heap. This is invaluable work, only fully appreciated by those who have to empty the dumper truck. If no one levelled and rearranged the spoil left by the dumper then we would rapidly run out of tip room. I ought to point out that we are not the only ones who do this, and between us we have also been filling in the deep ruts left by the dumper. This is a big help to dumper drivers who, strangely, do not like to suddenly list sideways as one side of the dumper drops into a deep rut whilst they drive along the narrowest and hairiest part of the track on the spoil heap!! I have the greatest respect for the few who will drive up there.

Mid January and the latest platform at 122 feet depth is almost complete. An incident with the winch has reminded us of our duty to be extra safety conscious at our ever increasing depth. Often when winching, the cable doesn't lay itself on the drum as neatly after it has two or three layers of wrapped cable on it and the cable will jump suddenly as it slips on previous layers of wrap. We are used to this, especially when the skip is almost at the top of the rail track. However, on this occasion it jumped a little harder than usual, and it wasn't noticed until the skip had been emptied and was on its way back down, that the cable had jammed itself under a lower layer of wrap. This meant that whilst lowering the skip, when the cable reached the part where it had jammed on the drum it bent over double and started winding itself back up. Oops! This, as you can imagine, does not do the (expensive) cable any good at all! It was decided that the cable wasn't too badly damaged, and we are still using it though we have resolved to be extra vigilant. This involves making sure the rail track is continuously greased, (a job that we should be doing anyway, Hugh tries to do it now each week) and the cable is ‘laid' on carefully every now and then to keep it neat. The same problem happened a few more times, but was noticed before the cable doubled itself over again. Another element that has reduced the re-occurrence of cable jamming is not to fill the skip so much and in so doing not put so much strain on the winch.

At the end of January I thought we had broken through as when I reached the bottom of the dig there was an Australian there. Though it turned out that he had just come along with one of the other diggers. Never mind, we'll just keep digging down!

Where the North end narrow section opens out into the rest of the dig is a wall of calcited boulders that proved resistant to being levered out with a bar and have been left in place. It is about 18 - 24 inches wide and the dig is starting to undercut it slightly. Not the best situation, as I said before for safety we really ought to be taking out everything that is not pure cave wall, or at least walling it off with cement. We have done neither to this North face. Myself, and others, have had a good look at this face and removed anything even remotely loose. This is probably the best we can do for now, though by March 2006 this had reached about 15 feet high, and as the dig goes down and the NHASA platform removed it will not be easy to reach it to remove anything loose.

February 2006. Cold. The bottom of the dig is now 130 feet below field level and dropping fast now that the floor space is small. The rail track has been extended again so that the skips can be filled at the bottom of the dig once more. Just two weeks later a NHASA platform was put in as the floor level had been dug out by several feet and the skip was out of reach already! The large amount of cable on the winch drum has reduced the winch's power by enough that it cannot pull out skips if they are too heavy. This happened mid February and the whole skip had to be completely emptied (sob) before the winch could slowly pull the skip out. This meant an early visit to the pub and rather too many lagers for me to remember much more about it!

Beginning of March 2006 and another few feet down, the deepest point is about 138 feet depth. In the North end of the dig a rather large boulder was sticking out of the wall of jammed rocks (8 feet up) and looked just a little too hairy to be left there. It took an awful lot of persuasion that it would rather fall to the floor to be smashed up with the sledge-hammer, though we did manage it eventually. Those waiting at the top for us to come out were wondering why we were taking so long to exit. They were beginning to think we must have broken through! Silly people. Don't they know by now that at Templeton we don't ‘break through' we just keep ‘going down'!

It was one weekend in March that Dave Morrison was wandering along the spoil heap in daylight when he spotted a bolt on the floor. He wondered if it had fallen off the dumper. On closer inspection it was discovered that it had indeed come from the dumper. It was an engine mounting bolt, and it wasn't the only one missing. All the others were loose as were the clutch bell housing bolts. Seems like the dumper was going to fall to pieces soon. Good thing this was discovered in time. All bolts were tightened by Phil Hendy and Brian Prewer and the missing bolts were measured up to get some replacements.

The trouble with a much reduced dig floor to dig is that we often have to leave a mound in the middle for someone to stand on to pass spoil upwards. This means that the only digging that can be done is in unstable deep holes either side of this mound. Dave Turner is especially good at digging unstable deep holes. He likes to dig away under ladders, sometimes whilst people are standing on them. He wasn't too surprised then when a ladder plus Hugh who had been standing on it landed on top of him one evening! The mound had to be removed and a second NHASA platform put in.

There are more boulders appearing in the floor now. It is difficult to smash these up on normal digging nights as there are too many bodies at the bottom of the dig. Hugh and I have taken to going to Templeton alone on a different night to have a good go at these with the sledge-hammer and pile up the bits for removal. This seems to work well as it speeds up skip filling.

Seven stemples have also been installed by Dave M and Jim Young at about 120 feet deep to brace potentially loose rocks on the East wall.

By the end of March we were 145 feet below field level. A long way to fall - as found out by the bunny rabbit that tried it. It had managed to avoid all the platforms and reach the bottom of the dig. This was something that we had thought was impossible due to the staggering of each platform as you descend. Designed to catch any rock that falls in no matter where it falls from.

April 2006, and it was looking like the North end of the dig might open out again. An ‘A' shaped passage was appearing. Unfortunately it didn't appear to go far, and it had liquid gloop in its floor that seemed to be several inches deep. Water obviously had collected here at some stage and its clay content had settled out. I wondered whether this was significant. I didn't understand why water should collect here and not drain away as the rest of the dig was plenty permeable enough (due to the high content of rocks).

Progress slowed for a couple of weeks as Dave was on holiday and he did not want us to dig deeper than the point at which he could easily install the sixth platform - the 142ft. Before he left, he had extended the rail track so that it nearly reached the floor again, but we were still using just one cable that only reached about 125ft down the shaft. This meant that the usual procedure of using two staggered NHASA platforms and a heap of rocks etc on the floor were used to be able to pass stuff up to the skip. Rail track extension involves having to first blast off a bit off the West wall as it seems to be bending inwards faster than the rail track is

trending Eastwards. As before, Clive North does this with det. cord which is most effective though unlike snappers it reduces the rocks into small pieces of shrapnel. His last blast accidentally buckled one of the NHASA platforms, but this was duly bent back into shape and repaired easily enough. Whilst waiting for the 142ft platform to be installed, some of the outstanding jobs on the surface were achieved. Phil Hendy built a very nice dry stone wall to support the earth bank alongside the dumper bay that had started to deteriorate. Also some fence posts were installed into the dumper bay main wall so that the dig will soon be completely enclosed by two fences.

May arrived and some lovely long daylight hours. We are using the 15ft long extension strop again which is attached in the same way as before though from the 122ft platform. The 142 ft platform is now in, and the skip can be filled with the use of only one NHASA platform again (for a short while)

Two large boulders have appeared in the floor and they have stubbornly refused to break up with the sledgehammer. We have found from experience that rocks will break up fairly easily if you can hit them from the right side. If you hit them from the wrong side, only small fragments fly off and eventually you make the boulder into a dome shape that you can do nothing with. Unfortunately these rocks were too big to be able to move so it had to be snappers. Hugh and Elaine dealt with them three days later, and the remains were dispatched in the skip the following week.

After a particularly wet spell in May we were most surprised to arrive at the dig one Monday and find that the bottom of the dig was flooded. Occasionally we have had puddles of water collect up after heavy rain, and usually it takes no time at all to drive the iron bar into the ground and get any standing water to drain away. We tried for a long time driving the bar in anywhere and everywhere (full length) with no success. There is a 9ft long metal pole at the bottom of the dig and we even managed to drive that into the floor some 7ft or so, in more than one spot, but the water just would not go. We retired to the pub early to consider what this meant. Early pub usually means accidentally having 3 pints of lager and then ‘considering' things is just too tricky for me!

However, thinking about it the next day, I remembered that the water level was just a few inches higher that the gloopy mud that had settled out in the North rift. It seems plausible that somewhere below us the water drains away at a steady rate, but can't keep pace with spells of heavy rain. The water then backs up to just above the floor of the newest found opening in the North rift, allowing mud to settle out there as the water level drops. This may have been happening all the time that we have been digging there, but we are only noticing it now that we have dug down to the level of the high water mark. There is also the idea that as we have dug down we have allowed mud and clay to wash down with us, which has settled out somewhere below restricting the draining of water. Interestingly though, two days later it had rained just as much and we were fully expecting it to still be flooded at the bottom, but the water had disappeared.

This does suggest that we are approaching changes in our dig at Templeton. I know we are always saying it, but it does look like there will be something significant found in the next 8-10 feet of descent.

However, we have a small repair to make to the skip now as at our last digging session the metal loop on the top of the skip (where the cable is attached) broke when the full skip was swung out over the dumper. There is a safety chain in place to hopefully stop the skip coming off the cable and protect us lot below, and this held, but a new loop will have to be welded on before the skip is used again.