Bateman's House, Lathkill Dale - Alan Brentnall

 After last week's great stomp around Giants, there was a plan hatched in the Peaks Hotel which involved Alan Walker getting permission from the Lathkill Estate for us to enter Lathkill Sough this week. I decided that this would be a good opportunity to complete a small DCA task which Ann and I had started in March 2017 when we were to investigate a winze at the back of the adit above Bateman's House to see whether it was worth installing P bolts to replace a set of rusting 8mm spits. This came about after a DCA project to put a gate on the adit was completed by Pete Knight and Bob Dearman. Our investigation go as far as ensuring that sufficient spits still worked to enable a safe descent, but was stalled by the presence of deep water in the shaft (see sketch); it would need to wait until a drought. Well, now we have our drought.

Alan got in touch to let me know that he had not had time to get permission from the estate, so we decided to carry on with the plan, and play it by ear once the winze had been inspected. There might be more to explore at the foot of the winze, as Phil had suggested it connected to Lathkill Sough, or we could check out the shaft under Bateman's House - or we could have look up Mandale Sough.

So, at 5.00pm, two hours before the normal meeting time for Tuesday night cavers, Pete Dell and Bernie met me in the small layby on the Dale Road below Over Haddon, and, armed with rope, spit hangers, slings, krabs and a can of WD40, we walked up through Lower Lathkilldale to the little arched bridge below Bateman's House. Pete and Bernie did a quick check to see the state of the water in the shaft underneath Bateman's House while I set about bashing a route up to the adit through the mass of fallen trees and nettles.

Pretty soon we were through the gate and oiling the spits. Pete's inspection of the shaft below Bateman's had indicated that the passages below could be quite dry, so we were optimistic. I'd brought two oldish ropes, both somewhere between 20m and 25m for the job as I didn't know the depth of the winze when dry, and I expected the rigging to be pretty scrappy, with plenty of rubs indicating IRT rather than SRT; care would certainly be needed.

Sure enough, once I got into the second vertical section of the shaft, the water was well down below me, and the distance down was such that Pete needed to install the second rope at the rebelay so that we had a good route down without a knot-pass. Once down, I found myself in a narrow, hading passage, waist deep in water - but it got much deeper in both directions and the roof lowered to give about a foot of airspace. I was standing on a cone of rubble and stones which is common at the foot of shafts, but it was possible to wedge my body out of the water using small sloping ledges. When I planned this trip, I fully expected the passages to be drier than this - we should have brought neoprene.

Pete and Bernie joined me to check out the situation. The direction of the water-filled passage was roughly north-south, north leading towards Bateman's House and Lathkill Sough, south leading into the valley side and, presumably, workings. But the water was cold, and, without neoprene, it was unlikely that we'd be able to venture too far - but it was promising enough to warrant keeping the idea of improving the pitch anchors. We needed more dry weather and another visit.

After de-tackling the winze and returning through the nettle jungle, Pete and I decided to drop the shaft below Bateman's House and see what we could see there. Bernie went back down the dale to see if any of the others had turned up yet.

My previous descents of Bateman's Shaft had been at the instigation of Dave Webb and the late Ralph Johnson and had involved sorting out lighting problems on the hand-turned illumination feature. There had always been a deep pool of flowing water at the foot of the shaft, indicating sumped passages beneath. Today two large passages were plainly visible, with a frisky stream flowing between. I entered the upstream passage, and turned back after about 30m where the cold from the chest deep water started to affect me.

Downstream, I soon met a junction with a passage entering on the right at an acute angle pointing south-ish - probably coming from the passage at the foot of our winze? Further on I encountered deep water and, once again, turned back.

Folk were now arriving at Bateman's - Pete Knight, Grace, Robert, Jenny, Julian and Alan Walker all joined us, and some much bolder exploration took place, getting much further into both passages than I had.

It was difficult to get a picture of what the original set up was; as well as the inlet and outlet passages, there was a run-in shaft and a small trial, all of which were investigated. A very interesting place which raised (for me, at any rate) more questions than answers.

It took some time for everybody to re-ascend the shaft, so it was after 9pm by the time we were all back on the surface. Despite the warm night, we decided that we were all too cold from our immersions for any further caving, and most of us elected to go up to the Lathkil Hotel for a beer and a chat!