page_title: Wookey Hole Caves
section_title: Exploration
hierarchical_section_title: Wookey Hole Caves / History / Exploration
caption_attribution_description: English: Cave diving equipment in the museum at Wookey Hole Caves
context_page_description: Wookey Hole Caves are a series of limestone caverns, a show cave and tourist attraction in the village of Wookey Hole on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills near Wells in Somerset, England. The River Axe flows through the cave. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest for both biological and geological reasons. Wookey Hole cave is a "solutional cave", one that is formed by a process of weathering in which the natural acid in groundwater dissolves the rocks. Some water originates as rain that flows into streams on impervious rocks on the plateau before sinking at the limestone boundary into cave systems such as Swildon's Hole, Eastwater Cavern and St Cuthbert's Swallet; the rest is rain that percolates directly through the limestone. The temperature in the caves is a constant 11 °C.
  The caves have been used by humans for around 45,000 years, demonstrated by the discovery of tools from the Palaeolithic period, along with fossilised animal remains. Evidence of Stone and Iron Age occupation continued into Roman Britain. A corn-grinding mill operated on the resurgent waters of the River Axe as early as the Domesday survey of 1086.
context_section_description: The cave as far as the third chamber and side galleries has been known since at least the Iron Age period. Prior to the construction of a dam at the resurgence to feed water to the paper mill downstream, two more chambers (the Fourth and Fifth) were accessible. Further upstream the way lies underwater. Diving was first tried by the Cave Diving Group under the leadership of Graham Balcombe in 1935. With equipment on loan from Siebe Gorman, he and Penelope ("Mossy") Powell penetrated 52 m (170 ft) into the cave, reaching the seventh chamber, using standard diving dress. The events marked the first successful cave dives in Britain.
  Diving at Wookey resumed in early June 1946 when Balcombe used his homemade respirator and waterproof suit to explore the region between the resurgence and first chamber, as well as the underground course of the river between the third and first chambers. During these dives, the Romano-British remains were found and archaeological work dominated the early dives in the cave. The large ninth chamber was first entered on 24 April 1948 by Balcombe and Don Coase. Using this as an advance dive base, the 10th and then 11th chambers were discovered. The way on, however, was too deep for divers breathing pure oxygen from a closed-circuit rebreather. The cave claimed its first life on 9 April 1949 when Gordon Marriott lost his life returning from the ninth chamber. Another fatality was to occur in 1981 when Keith Potter was drowned on a routine dive further upstream.
  Further progress required apparatus which could overcome the depth limitation of breathing pure oxygen. In 1955 using an aqualung and swimming with fins, Bob Davies reached the bottom of the 11th chamber at 15 m (49 ft) depth in clear water and discovered the 12th and 13th chambers. He got separated from his guideline and the other two divers in the 11th chamber, ending up spending three hours trapped in the 13th chamber and had much trouble getting back to safety. Opinion hardened against the use of the short-duration aqualung in favour of longer-duration closed-circuit equipment. Likewise, the traditional approach of walking along the bottom was preferred over swimming. Employing semi-closed circuit nitrogen-oxygen rebreathers, between 1957 and 1960 John Buxton and Oliver Wells went on to reach the elbow of the sump upstream from the ninth chamber at a depth of 22 m (72 ft). This was at a point known as "The Slot", the way on being too deep for the gas mixture they were breathing.
  A six-year hiatus ensued while open circuit air diving became established, along with free-swimming and the use of neoprene wetsuits. The new generation of cave diver was now more mobile above and under water and able to dive deeper. Using this approach, Dave Savage was able to reach air surface in the 18th chamber (chambers did not have to have air spaces to be so named; they were the limits of each exploration) in May 1966. A brief lull in exploration occurred while the mess of guidelines laid from the ninth chamber was sorted out before John Parker progressed first to the large, dry, inlet passage of the 20th chamber, and thence followed the River Axe upstream on a dive covering 152 metres (499 ft) at a maximum depth of 24 metres (79 ft) to the 22nd chamber where the way on appeared to be lost.
  Meanwhile, climbing operations in the ninth chamber found an abandoned outlet passage which terminated very close to the surface, as well as a dry overland route downstream through the higher levels of the eighth, seventh and sixth chambers as far as the fifth chamber. These discoveries were used to enable the show cave to be extended into the ninth chamber and the cave divers to start directly from here, bypassing the dive from the third chamber onwards. The way on from the 22nd chamber was at last found by Colin Edmond and Martyn Farr in February 1976 and was explored until the line ran out. A few days later Geoff Yeadon and Oliver Statham somewhat controversially reached the 23rd chamber after laying just a further 9 metres (30 ft) of line. A further three short dives 
caption: Cave diving equipment in the museum at Wookey Hole Caves
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