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It’s a damn fine dig - Ed!!!
Templeton Pot was a open hole some 25 foot deep when the last report was
published in the June ACG Journal. Since then much progress has been made
towards the large amount of excavation necessary to get to the deepest point
previously reached. To help us we have a mechanical winch which can haul up
our skip (kindly made by Richard Chaddock and can hold up to 250kg of
material). Before this arrived three of us madder mortals (Elaine Hugh and
Sue) tried carrying small buckets of spoil up by hand two at a time. This
was HARD! The skip holds at least 10-12 times that which a bucket can carry.
Our job became even easier when a mini-digger was lent to us for filling up
the skip. There were about 10 of us there on the night that we lowered this
mini-digger down the 45o slope into the hole. There were various comments of
“goodness knows how we will get this out again!” We still don’t know the
answer to this question. We have lowered the bottom of our hole by some 10 -
15 foot since the digger was brought in, and most of the sides are vertical,
and we have dug back to bedrock. It really is an impressive looking hole
now.
We had some lovely long light summer evenings to dig in. I had become quite
used to not having to take my caving hat! We even wore shorts and T-shirt
one evening, that is hard to imagine now that it is cold and I wear 3
jumpers and two pairs of trousers under my oversuit!! There are a number of
us who dig there regularly, and we often go more that once a week, so I have
not been able to keep an account of who has been there and how often.
There were five pipes left buried back in June, by the beginning of
September there was only one. I was present when the fourth pipe was
removed. We used a thick rope that had about 6 frayed sections along its
length! Dave Morrison and I stood at as safe a distance as we could whilst
Hugh pulled it out with his Matbro. The rope broke twice, and we retied it
plus some of the more dodgy looking frays with reef knots leaving us only
just enough length of rope if we brought the machine as close to the hole as
we dared! Remembering the sound of the stretching and snapping rope I am
quite amazed that we did eventually achieve our goal and get the pipe out!
The last section of pipe was buried in the clay, with large rocks on and in
it.
By mid September Dave Morrison and Jim Young had built a railway for the
skip to run along. Up to now the skip had been dragged a steep mud slope,
but there were always problems with it getting stuck, or tipping over, so
this railway made life so much easier. We have also borrowed a large
generator. This means that our dig is now illuminated, much safer now the
nights have
drawn in. More safety aspects were added by the end of September, such as
additional fencing, a safety rail, and a dry stone wall at the top. We have
also acquired a dumper truck to use. That’s four noisy machines now!
One corner of our dig has been attracting our attention as we lower the
floor level. There are overhanging rocks containing cracks filled with mud,
and a narrow rift at the side of them suggested that behind these rocks was
more clay. We realised that there was probably not a lot holding them in
place, and rain would probably cause them to collapse sooner or later. We
had been discussing the best course of action for these rocks, but nature
beat us to it, and one night in mid October Hugh and I turned up to dig only
to find that a relatively small section of the overhang had fallen out after
some recent heavy rain. Unfortunately the digger was parked fairly close to
the rock-face at the time and some of the larger rocks (standard television
size) had caught the edge it.
The rail that runs around the seat of the digger was knocked off and the
seat was completely folded over. The exhaust was buckled, and some
structural metal bent but fortunately it seemed to be repairable, though it
was a further 2-3 weeks before time was found to do this.
So back to filling skips by hand. This isn’t all bad as it means we can chat
whilst digging again as the digger was somewhat loud when it was working.
Also we can breathe nice clean air! No fumes!
By now our digging area had reduced in size to some 150-180 sq ft. The
digger prevents us digging in about half of this space, and the remaining
pipe is in the middle of the other half. Therefore our next goal was to
remove the pipe. Because of the installation of the railway and also the
stone wall we built, it was not going to be possible to pull the pipe out
whole so it had to be broken up. Not going to be easy as it is made of
reinforced concrete! Firstly though there were the rocks in and around it to
deal with. The digger was out of action, besides, some of these rocks were
too big for our skip so we intended to bang them with snappers.
Hugh and I went up one night at the end of October to try out a snapper on
one particular large rock. Hugh had also read somewhere that rocks could be
broken up using expanding polystyrene foam. We drilled a hole into two
different rocks, squirting foam into one to see whether it would work. The
foam just squirted out of the hole. Oops. Still, nothing ventured…..etc! The
snapper however was very effective. It reduced a television-sized rock into
a pile of loaf- sized ones!
By November the digger was mended and functional, though its use has been
restricted to daytime work. We still hand-filled skips in the evening
sessions. Wet weather has returned the clay in Templeton’s to its familiar
glue consistency! Standing in one spot for more than 5 seconds usually means
you are stuck there for a while trying to free your wellies. Water collects
in places, especially next to the pipe, though we managed to make that drain
away with a highly satisfying gurgle. An attempt to blow the pipe up with a
snapper revealed a void underneath it which is where the water had
disappeared.
Towards the end of November, Dave and Jim spent a very productive day at the
dig during which 12 skips of spoil were removed and the last pipe broken up
and taken out. When we turned up for our normal Wednesday evening digging
session we found a 5 foot deep hole where the pipe had been. It was 6-8
inches deep in water, but it wasn’t long before Simon managed to get this to
drain away. Later that same evening we managed to get two people to squeeze
under the rock arch that divided the two sets of pipes that used to be
there.
We are slowly but surely getting back to where we were at the beginning of
the year. We knew that it was going to be a long job, but it is good to see
things - i.e. rock-faces - that we recognise from our days digging
underground.
However, the digger sits above us on a big lump of clay and rocks. That is
our next task. We have to get this digger out of the hole before we can make
much more progress. We have various ideas on how to go about this, and it
looks as though we will be able to remove it and keep it intact. Notice that
I keep saying “we”. Truth is though, I am a mere pleb when it comes to
things like digger removal, and I am happy to leave it to someone else to
work out!
So for now, this report brings progress at Templeton’s up to date. No doubt
more news will follow in the next journal.
Elaine Johnson |
