Stump Cross / Valentines Hole

Well I have been keen to have a look around this system for quite some time especially after studying the  complex survey.


We arrived at Stump Cross caverns waiting for the doors to open so we could obtain the keys to open the lids on the entrances located in the fields on the moorland. In the mean time I had a quick peep over the wall at the other side of the road to see the entrance to the mythical Grenade Shaft. Sadly access is very rarely granted for this entrance to protect the fragile formations that exist down there so for the time being I will just have to use my imagination. So back to the task in hand when the cafe for the show cave opened we were greeted by Harry Long one of the authors of the guide books "Northern Caves" who was working at the show cave, Fay got three sets of keys for Shockle Shaft, Valentines Hole and Mongo Gill north shaft. We had a coffee in the cafe then got kitted up in the car park and armed with rope bags and three bunches of keys we set out to find Shockle shaft .
This area has a history of lead mining and several sections of this system are man made mined sections that we would pass through. Shockle shaft was a man made shaft that allowed the miners to access the cave system below and remove limestone formations to sell and collect, they called the limestone formations "Shockle" that's where the shaft gets its name.


We planned to go into the system down the north shaft which is another ten to fifteen minute walk over land further away and work our way through the system then out through Shockle shaft so our first task was to rig Shockle shaft. We tied the rope to solid anchor points and one by one descended the rope around twenty meters or so until we emerged in a very muddy floored small Humber that had a small passage dropping downwards. To navigate this passage required a short flat out crawl through the thick mud where the passage soon opened up. To our right we could see another passage heading off but we left this to concentrate on locating ladder chamber which would be our way out after the through trip, so we walked down hill into a decent sized chamber and located the iron ladder that the chamber is after. Then with the aid of the knotted rope scrambled up the muddy slope above the ladder that then emerged into another chamber where it seemed several tunnels converged. We had a good look around to familiarise ourselves as this would be our way out .. Eventually!


We about turned then through the gooey crawl we found our rope and prussiked back up Shockle shaft and then walked up the valley to find the north shaft whist dodging shooters twelve bore bullets! After we found the entrance and fumbled around with various sets of keys I rigged the north shaft and clipped the decender onto the rope and lowered myself into Mongo gill. At the bottom of the pitch is a stooping height chamber that seems to have passages leading off everywhere . Some of the passages are obvious cave passage others are angular mined tunnels, I will be honest I didn't have a clue which way I should be heading so I had a good look around while I waited for Andy and Fay to get down the shaft.


When Fay arrived she knew roughly where we should be looking and we went from the chamber to a section of passage that went up over a false floor this passage went on for quite away hands and knees crawling round a big stalagmite boss, then got bigger and smaller then bigger again we went through some sections with fine formations including helictites and a section called the forest that was very well decorated then the way on was through a hole in the floor on the left. Fay warned that this bit might be tight , well we seemed to pass through ok then came to another hole in the floor "oh I think this must be the tight bit" well it was flat out for about ten meters through a few inches of water just about enough to wet your chin the the crawl went up hill and opened out into a large boulder strewn chamber. I could hear Andy grunting his way through the crawl behind me, I don't think he enjoyed that bit! "At least we would not have to go out the same  way" I reassured him. We made our way along the system passing  various chambers and tunnels, before we knew it the passage started to go smaller then we crawled uphill through a slot on the right hand side.This led us into a standing height chamber with two slots in one wall at head height and the passage of the chamber itself petering off to a choke. Fay did not recognise this section so we had a look down the high level slots leading off. These small passages soon petered out leaving us no option but to retrace our steps.
As we worked our way back into the main passage we became a little disorientated and struggled to find our bearings, we had to be out before four pm so with this in mind we decided to go back out the way we came in. I could tell Andy was not looking forward to the tight section again but what else could we do? I just had this nagging feeling that we were not far away from Shockle shaft we couldnt be!


After scrambling around a chamber we stumbled upon I mined section of passage. I saw a fragile looking post propping the roof up , I remembered this from reading a route description that we had we made our way along this tunnel and then emerged into the chamber we explored when rigging Shockle shaft ... Yes!


We made our way up the steep slope to the passage that leads into ladder cavern, down the knotted rope then down the iron ladder a short walk and another crawl through the thick mud then one last prussik up the rope  and we emerge into daylight.


I immediately made my way to the north shaft and de-rigged the entrance and locked the cover. When I got back to Shockle shaft Andy had had enough for one day and headed back to get changed and a brew in the cafe. Myself and Fay went to have a look in valentines hole. Valentines hole seems to be mainly mined tunnels which breaks into part of the cave system, the shaft is probably twenty plus meters that emerges into a small chamber with mined tunnels that head off from this chamber the bit we was interested in was a section of cave passage that rose up from a platform waist high. This was negotiated by crawling for a short distance then the passage opened up into a large chamber that finishes with a boulder choke. However in this chamber there is a complete skeleton of a big dog . It looks in one piece and the dog looks like it had laid down, died, and decomposed. After some research I found the dog was discovered when the shaft was reopened in 1962 so it had been in there since it was operating as mine workings so it's a mystery how it got there?


All in all a great days caving .. Till the next time!


Paul