University of Bristol Spelæological Society

THE BIG CLEAN 2023


Left to right: Jess, Merryn, Dan, Imogen, Mia, Megan de-moulding.
Or, how many cavers does it take to plug bath? Read on for the answer to this and many other great questions of life in the story of our annual post exams hut maintance party, kindly funded by the Oliver Lloyd Memorial Fund, who provided food and drink for the workers.

The day started with the usual faffy at the tackle story, followed by various people making their way out to the hut, including Imogen and Merryn who cycled out. The first job to be tackled was brushing the roof, ably tackled by Mia, while Linda, Jan and Jess started to uncover the patio at the front by sweeping this with one and a half brooms. They then worked their way behind the hut to path at the side and the concrete at the back leading to the drying room, now renamed the sauna! The bath and shower also got thoroughly cleaned. You didn't know we had a bath? Prepare to be amazed.

The next job was clearing the gully that runs around the back of the hut to keep the damp at bay. The existence of this feature came as a surprise to many people, as the wiggly tin that stops it filling up completely with leaves was pretty much covered by the sweepings from the roof. Charmaine, Dan and Linda got on with that job, with two wheelbarrows on the go to take away the vast mounds of leaves.


Yes, we really need to sort stuff out. Left to right: Merryn, Charmaine, Imogen, Jan, Simon.
While all that was going on, Imogen, Megan and Mia has started the 11th Labour of Heracles, namely de-moulding and cleaning the inside of the hut. They were later joined by the gully clearance party and much cleaning spray was dispensed and many green sponges and cloths met their fate. But things were starting to look a lot cleaner and fresher. The seat covers and seats were scrubbed, the floor was thoroughly brushed, thanks to Ben and Stanley, while Simon started to strim the grass, as by now the generator was running and he was able to use the electric strimmer.

Stu dealt with a large branch of one of the beech trees that had partially dropped over the Married Quarters and he and Simon logged the wood, with help from Guy who wandered around, axe in hand, in a very buff way and made a reserve wood stock behind the hut under cover, as the woodstore is still full from last year's massive woodcutting and chopping session. Linda rearranged the stack at the back to brings some wood forward so we use what's there evenly and then the cleaning party moved on to wiping down all the mattresses followed by cleaning the pots and pans and shelves in the kitchen. Others outside, including Ben, Merryn and Felix helped with more cleaning. Yes, there was a hell of a lot of cleaning to do.  Linda complained that Stanley had failed to bring moisturiser clean!


Obligatory photo of Guy looking buff.
With cleaning efforts finally winding down, Guy started on the barbecue and Imogen produced the most amazing potato salad! Recipe: Boil a metric fuckton of new potatoes then, when they're still warm, pour over olive oil mixed with lemon juice and mix in huge amounts of fresh herbs and chopped garlic. The herbs were mint, dill and something else. This was consumed in prodigious quantities along with burgers and sausage, tomatoes and lettuce.


Yes, of course we can seal the bath using a candle and hot wax! Whatever made you doubt us? Haydon, supervised by Linda, vying for a place on a reality TV show.
By now the fire in the hut was in operation and we had hot water. Very hot water. Mia declared that she wanted/needed a hot bath. The plan then hit a problem. We have a bath, but no plug. Cue more and more people standing around coming up with increasingly improbable (and ineffective) plans, including balled up rubber gloves, tin foil plugs, tin foil plugs combined with rubber gloves, tin foil plugs combined with (empty) dog poo bags and Haydon trying to stuff every plastic cap he could find in the hole. A measure of success was achieved by Linda's suggestion of putting a candle in the hole and then melting wax all around it to seal the gaps. This allowed Mia, Imogen and Jess to pile into a hot (very hot) bath, complete with bubble bath and small plastic duck.


No bath is complete without sophisticated cocktails,. But we didn't have them, so had to make do with tinnies. Left to right: Jess, Mia and Imogen.
When a trickle of water started to emerge from the bottom. Haydon had the bright idea of cable tying a rubber glove tightly around the outlet underneath and the water level was swiftly restored. As a team building exercise it was screamingly funny, and our application for The Apprentice is in preparation. Alan Sugar, prepare to be impressed!

The Bath Sceptics were forced to admit that whilst not necessarily being the best use of water, that was more than made up for by the fact that it is bloody hilarious and provides plenty of Wholesome, Good Clean Fun. That's our story, and we're sticking to it. The Bath Sceptics are now converts. And just to prove that we are a caving club, Merryn and Charmaine went caving after dinner, with a trip to Rod's Pot.


Celebrating a job well done. Left to right: Guy, Simon, Mia, Megan, Ben, Felix, Stanley, Graham, Imogen, Dan, Merryn, Jan, Jess. Missing: Charmaine, who'd gone for a run, Stu who'd had to leave early and Haydon who hadn't arrived yet. Linda was behind the camera.
Thanks again to the Oliver Lloyd Memorial Fund for food and drink and to the following for the hard labour and ancillary assistance: Mia Jacobs, Imogen Clement, Megan Malpas, Jan Walker, Charmaine Sew, Jess Brock, Merryn Matthews,  Linda Wilson, Simon Payne, Dan Hill, Stu Walker, Graham Mullan, Ben Alterman, Stanley Lewis, Guy Maalouf, Felix Arnautovic and Haydon Saunders.

BCA eAGM


All UBSS members are also members of the British Caving Association (BCA). Insurance is one of the member benefits and something else we all benefit from is the funding for regional conservation and access projects. The BCA eAGM will take place at 10.30am on Sunday 11th June 2023. The following message has been sent out member clubs with a request to pass this information onto their membership.

"This year the Chair would like to draw your attention to the vacant posts that will be open to nomiations from the floor. These are:

• Treasurer: A member of the BCA Executive, responsible for the BCA finances.
• Publications and Information Officer: Assists the BCA with publicity, engagement, and media strategy.
• Youth and Development Officer: Works to ensure that the BCA provides support to young people and associated organisations.
• IT Working Group Convenor: Manages the BCA's IT Systems with support from a Working Group.
• Group/Club Representative: Represents the interests of Clubs and Groups with a vote on BCA Council.

The full message from the chair is available here. If you have any further questions please email the BCA secretary at [email protected]."

You can either watch the livestream of the AGM on Facebook or use the Zoom link to participate live. Full details of how to watch or join the meeting can be found on the BCA website.
 

MUDDY DUCKS AND PRETTY STUFF


Photo by Jess Brock.
On the 24th May, Jess Brock, Mia Jacobs, Simon Payne, and Zac Woodford headed over to Fairy Cave Quarry for a through trip from Hillier's to Fairy Cave. Jess takes up the story ...

We parked in the small carpark and walked up the road and climbed over the boulders to the gate. The quarry was filled with towering green greens and it was hot and sunny - a dramatic change from the last time we were there as then the quarry was shrouded in thick white fog and frost.


A study in contrasts. Photos by Jess Brock.
The cave started with a small traverse down. We walked and crawled through the continuous chambers to Tar Hall which looked like big black drippy flowstone. Along the way we stopped and I took pictures on my camera with Simon's powerful daylight torch.

Pretties. Photo by Simon Payne.
We made our way to Cambridge Grotto which was decorated beautifully with stalagmite banks. Above our heads interesting fringed curtains looked like streaky bacon. We explored past Cambridge Grotto but soon doubled back before ascending up into Fairy Cave. We traversed a huge hole and made our way through a series of blasted chambers and crawls.


Simon Payne coming through the duck. Photos by Jess Brock.
The duck was filled with muddy water and was refreshing given the summer weather. Simon decided to take the duck face first and came out the other side drenched.

Luckily we weren't too far from the exit, which soon revealed itself from the hanging roots, one of which jutted out from a crack and was easily 3m long.


Our intrepid explorers: top, left to right, Mia and Jess; bottom left to right, Zac and Simon. Photo by Jess Brock.
We emerged from the cave tired and muddy (except Zac) and ready for a pint.
 

PLENTY OF TIME FOR TIFFIN


Entrance series, Ogof Draenen. Still from a film of the Entrance series to Fault Chambers by Andy and Antonia Freem, used with their kind permission.
It's nice to know that UBSS catering standards aren't allowed to slip even when underground, as Zac Woodford and Merryn Matthews demonstrate on a rapid trip Draenan round trip.

With my coursework over, it was time for some proper caving again! Merryn suggested we take another stab at Draenen. Cut to the car drive over and Merryn discussing the round trip route during which she reveals that the expected trip time was seven hours. That would have made it one of the longest trips I’d ever done. Thankfully – spoilers – it wasn’t that long.

Having previously done the route from the main entrance to Megadrive, we sped through there quickly. We then equally swiftly made our way south with Merryn navigating from a survey borrowed from Henry. We took a couple of wrong turns, once in St. David's Chamber and again just before Squirrel Rift.

We continued towards the Sewers. However, just before them, we dropped from a traverse over the stream into a small chamber where the stream bends back on itself through an incredibly narrow rift. We refused to believe that the rift was the way on so looked, desperately, for an alternate route. But with all leads coming up blank we went through the rift. Me first, headfirst, which Merryn later commented wouldn’t have been her way of doing it.

The Sewers were very entertaining and eventually led out, via several cascades, to the main streamway. It was at this point that we realised the survey had gone astray. We knew the way on was relatively simple, follow the streamway until you’re out. And so we decided to continue on.

The streamway was terrible. It was either too narrow or choked by boulders. We were so disappointed that we considered lodging a complaint with the committee. It was also here that we stopped for snacks. I’d brought a packet of rice cakes and a tub of humous which had miraculously survived the trip through the numerous rifts.

After tiffin we made our way out quickly with no navigational troubles, despite the loss of the survey. With our speed we managed it in four and a half hours instead of the predicted seven!
 

MUSEUM AND LIBRARY UPDATE


Hard at work (left to right), Ben Alterman, Zac Woodford, Jess Brock. Photo by Linda Wilson.
Nearly 18 months ago, our museum and library, housed in the building we know as the Stables (called The Coach House on the university's property inventory), was closed when the joists holding up one of the upper rooms slumped due to the ravages of wet rot. Now, after numerous sporadic updates along the hopeful lines of 'work might be starting soon', musum curator Linda Wilson can finally declare: "WE'RE BACK IN!"

It's been a hell of a long haul, and I must admit there were times when I fully expected to get an email telling me that the university had declared it uneconomic to effect the repairs, but against all the odds, Estates were finally able to beg, steal or borrow the dosh to pay for the repairs and work eventually started after Easter. The contractors did an excellent job in the upper room, leaving us only the ceiling to redecorate. Jess Brock, Zac Woodford and Ben Alterman retaped all the joints and applied a coat of white paint and it was soon looking as good as new.


Zac's height and long arms come in really useful!
The next job was to continue the nice new magnolia paint down the stairs and then tackle the museum display room on the ground floor, as the walls were looking looking distinctly grotty by comparison with upstairs. Zac, Jess and Jan Walker started on that while I kept out of their way and got on with applying the first coat of woodstain to the bannisters upstairs.


Took me all bloody day to do this, so please admire!
They all seemed pretty cheerful, while I chuntered and moaned about the contortions and bending I was doing on my lonesome upstairs. In the afternoon, Charmaine Sew took over from Jess and by the time I limped downstairs at the end of a back breaking day, the first coat was on! I smiled approvingly and muttered that it needed a second coat. To their lasting credit, they didn't dunk my head in the magnolia paint.


Jan still looking cheerful. Zac looking like a plague doctor pretending to be a teapot.
The following day, Jan and Zac returned to apply the second coat and even worked an amazing double act to get the first coat of stain on the bannisters down the stairs!


Charmaine painting. Zac is still looking like a plague doctor. not looking much like a teapot.
The next phase of operations was to see how we got on moving some of the bookcases back upstairs. The team assembled: Tony Boycott (archivist extraordinaire and assembler of the original library stack), Jan, Alex Blencowe, Dan Runcan, Ben, Stanley Lewis and Zac. Sixteen Ikea Billy bookcases were heaved upstairs with relative ease, proving that the more people you have, the easier some jobs become! We were then faced with the job of starting to clear some stuff out of the museum stack room. Sadly my plan of fitting the tall (ugly) metal cabinets in there fell at the first hurdle (the low roof), so it's back to the drawing board.

There's still a lot to do and work will continue for several months completing the reorganisation so that everything is back in its (mostly) proper place. If anyone would like to get involved with the work, please let me know. There's plenty for everyone to do. Thanks to everyone for their hard work over the past couple of weeks, and thanks to everyone in the university who has helped us get to this point!
 

THE SECRET OF THE CHÂTEAU


La Château des abbés de Saint Amand de Coly, looking into the gates, with the remains of a round tower on the right. Photo by Linda Wilson.
Secret tunnels are one of the most pervasive of local myths. Nearly every town has one, in many cases reputed to run from the castle to the nearby (or sometimes not so nearby) church. Linda Wilson and Graham Mullan tell the story of the secret tunnel in the village of Coly in the Dordogne region of France.

Secret tunnels. If we had a tenner for every one of these we've ever heard of, we'd be rich. Very rich. The Folklore Society once devoted a lecture to the secret tunnels of Sheffield. The researcher reported that, unfortunately, even after extensive investigation into every reputed lead to their whereabouts, they remained secret. Such stories have universal appeal, discussed by author, historic buildings' expert and all-round good drinking buddy James Wright in a guest blog post for the site Voyager of History.

France is no stranger to such myths, but - unusually - they do also have more than their fair share of genuine secret tunnels. Our region of the Dordogne has three that we've visited and this is the story of the one that's the closest to home for us.

Almost as soon as the ink was dry on our purchase of a plot of land in the Coly valley (for cavers, most notable for the Coly river that rises at the Doux de Coly, two kilometres away, the longest cave dive in Europe), we started hearing stories of a secret tunnel that was said to lead from the ruined château on the hill to the vast fortified abbey church at St Armand. The original château was built at the same time as the first abbey in the 12th century. The château, in common with others at the time is likely to have been a wooden structure, later rebuilt in stone. Eventually, it fell into disrepair, with the stone robbed for nearby buildings. The current building, in the remains of the castle walls, was built in the 18th century.


Excavated remains of earlier buildings on the site. Photo by Linda Wilson.
The mention of a secret tunnel was like catnip to a pair of cavers and at the earliest opportunity, when having aperitifs with our new neighbours, the then mayor and his wife, we made polite enquiries about the stories. We received the vague (and expected) replies that the tunnel did exist but was a) blocked and b) too dangerous to explore. However, we were assured that it did exist. The only detail we were able to obtain was that our neighbour had seen the entrance, and the large fallen block that obstructed it. So near, yet so far.

Years passed and we heard the story many times. Then a chink in the armour surrounding the secret tunnel appeared when one of the elderly residents of the village told us he knew the owner, who lives in Paris but visits occasionally, and would ask on our behalf if a visit might be possible. Unfortunately, his next visit was just after our return to Bristol. More time passed and when chatting to our neighbour one day, we were invited to dinner and, as it turned out, also invited were the owner of the château and his wife.

Our interest in the caves of the region was a topic of conversation, as was my interest in marks on old stone and wood (historic graffiti, protective marks etc), and we were invited to visit the château. Without wishing to look like rats diving rapidly down a drain, we casually set a time for the following afternoon. We were given a thorough tour of the new building and the ruins that surround it and then, still trying not to look like our whiskers were twitching at the thought of a drain to explore, we asked about the legend of the secret tunnel.


Entrance to the abris to the right of the main gate. Photo by Linda Wilson.
We were promptly shown to the entrance of an abris beside the remains of the entrance gate tower. The old wall built against the sloping cliff side formed a cave-like passage (now filled with a child's trampoline and the sort of stuff that accumulates in sheds and outbuildings everywhere) but at the far end of the rock shelter, I could see a stone wall across the passage and, at head height, a black body-sized triangle. We asked if we could take a closer look and were waved on. Torch in hand, we clambered over to the end of the abris and I shone my torch into what looked suspiciously like a genuine tunnel. Whiskers now twitching furiously, we eyed up the wall for stability. The owner, clearly less nervous about holes in the ground than the mayor (who turned out to be his cousin), asked if we wanted a ladder. That made life easier and we didn't have to test the stability of the wall under the eye of its owner.


A rat about to enter a drain. Photo by Linda Wilson.
To our surprise, the triangular opening looking into what was clearly a natural cave passage, not a man-made tunnel, and the 'fallen lintel' that had given our neighbour the heebie jeebies was a solid-looking roof. We scampered up the ladder in full rats into a drain mode, and headed off down the passage! We were subsequently told that it was fine to visit the cave again and that our neighbour would open the gate for us if the owners were away. So on our latest trip, we took advantage of that and went back to take more photos and do a sketch survey. What follows is the only formal description and survey of the cave that exists, as far as we know.

Grotte de la Château des abbés de Saint Amand de Coly
Length: 40 m (approx.)
Altitude: 139 m
Lat/Long 45.085466 , 1.266459
W3W: régnons.végétaux.dissuasif

The cave can be found in the courtyard of the Château des abbés de Saint Amand de Coly. The entrance is located at the back of a partially ruined 12th century round tower, the northern of the two gate towers. The first 10 - 12m of passage comprise an abris, a rock shelter with a natural wall on the left and a curved stone, corbelled half-arch on the right. This passage is roomy, some 3 - 4m wide and 3m high and ends at an artificial wall passable through a short crawl at the top.


Arch to second chamber. Photo by Linda Wilson.
The cave proper begins at the wall. Crawling through the hole at the top of the wall leads to a slope down into a roomy section of passage. The slope consists of rubble which seems to have been ‘pushed’ into the passage, presumably when the rock shelter was cleared for use as storage. At the bottom of the slope is a circular chamber, some 4m wide and 3m high. After passing under an arch, a larger, 6 - 7m diameter chamber is reached. A 2m climb up the far side of this second chamber leads to a higher section of the chamber, with a loose sloping floor. Here the cave ends, although there are a couple of small alcoves that might yield to digging.


Second chamber looking down from the top of the final slope. Photo by Linda Wilson.
An interesting feature is a tree root running amost the whole length of the cave on the left hand wall at waist height. From the position of the root relative to the surface, it is likely that this is from a large, old box tree that has (so far) escaped the ravages of box moth in the region.


The tree root runs along a natural shelf and even turns a corner! At first, we mistook it for a water pipe, and then realised that it was a root.


A rat emerging from a drain. Photo by Graham Mullan.
We would like to thank the owners, Pierre and Paul Joffre for allowing us to visit that cave, and Philippe Joffre for facilitating access for the survey.