Devonshire Cavern - Alan Brentnall

After a very productive day assessing yet another disabled stile in need of mending, and putting some finishing touches to the forthcoming DCRO Dash fell race route with Roy Rodgers and Pete Dell, Pete and I headed over to Pete's for a cup of tea and a chat about tonight's caving trip.

The plan was to visit Devonshire Cavern and enter via the newly capped shaft and/or the new gate. The problem was that neither of us had been to either site on the surface. Plan B, we decided, was to enter via the usual "oven door" entrance and find these to entrypoints from inside. Plan A was to use the rest of the afternoon wandering around Upperwood Woods trying to find them on the surface. Well that didn't work. We found a "likely" path which soon dissolved into prickly brambles, and ended up searching steep and fortunately dry wooded slopes resulting in the discovery of several older entrances, and one new one which was too low and too close to the house. Well, as they say, "Never mind that for a game of soldiers!", and we retreated to Matlock Bath for chips before waiting for the others to arrive.

Another big turn-out saw Dave, Mark, Steve, Grace, Jen, Katie, Bernie, Julian and Jess joining Pete and me. Steve stated that he'd talked to Mark Kraus, a Crewe member, who gave him some better beta than we'd been given, so Steve set off up the hill before us to try to use this info to find the entrances. Meanwhile, we all changed and set off ourselves, passing on the way a group of PDMHS chappies, including Adam, who were set on finding the entrance to a higher shaft for Devonshire which drops down and intersects with the passage atop the old iron ladder. It would be interesting to know how this turned out, as this would greatly increase the possibility of interesting trips and even new discoveries in the future.

Steve's ploy worked well, and he shouted us up to a higher path which led easily to both entrances. Once all were up the hill, Steve rigged the shaft, while Pete set about the gate entrance. Two thirds dropped in down the beautiful pitch (it really was - far nicer pick dressing than you could see from below) and one third entered via the gate (Katie solving the problem of the upside-down padlock) and Brendan arrived from the lower entrance making our number twelve. Once everybody was down, in and de-kitted, the plan was to head down via TM chamber, the dustbin and Mud Hall to the Miner's Pillar and then go deeper into the mine - hopefully to bottom it and "find" the "crystal pool", and maybe the foot of the "new" shaft Pete and I had spotted near the house.

All went well until an awkward climb split the party into several factions trying to find easier ways. Eventually Brendan and I located a reasonable way down to the (recognisable) duck-squeeze, from where it was fairly straightforward to the bottom, where a left hander entered the crystal pool level and a right hander passed a dead-end parallel passage to another beautiful shaft. I couldn't spot the new grid so we don't know whether it is the newly capped shaft - but it may be ...

Meanwhile others arrived and reported that Pete and Dave had opted not to follow. Once all had had a good look around, we set about retracing our steps. Well, that was easier said than done, and quite a few false turns eventually guided us up a totally different route which brought us into the passageway up-dip from the Miner's Pillar. As there were ten of us in the group, we had various stops to allow folk to catch up and at one of these somebody mentioned that if we were elephants (yes, we also have these weird conversations underground) we would be hanging on by trunks and tails and it would be a smooth operation. Hilarious! Elephants in Devonshire, smooth? This caused me to recite Marriott Edgar's excellent monologue "Aggie the Elephant", to which Katie responded with Les Barker's even more odd "Any News of the Iceberg". She also mentioned that caving trips with Eldon were totally unlike those with TSG. Really?

Once above the Miner's Pillar, we had the problem of deciding whether Pete and Dave were above us or in passages below. Most reckoned that we'd been so long that they would have moved on, so we carried on to the Dustbin, took a left to Five Ways and thence to TM Chamber and the Main Chamber. Sure enough Pete and Dave were outside of the gate having derigged the pitch. So all that was left was to pick up discared SRT rigs and exit the system.

As with many venues used (over-used?) by centres and clubs, Devonshire, like Carlswark has come to earn a reputation implying that it is too easy, same-old same-old and boring. And yet both these caverns have much more to offer than the limited routes which get used day-in day-out. Indeed they are both very extensive and complex, and can give some great trips. As tonight's episode proved.