Wookey Hole Caves - History - Exploration

Exploration

The cave as far as the Third Chamber and side galleries has always been known. 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 on lay 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 "Chamber 7" 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 home-made respirator and waterproof suit to explore the region between Resurgence and First Chamber, as well as the underground course of the river between Chamber 3 and Chamber 1. 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 Tenth and then Eleventh 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 Chamber 9. 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 Chamber 11 at 15 m (49 ft) depth in clear water and discovered the 12th and 13th Chambers. Unfortunately, he got separated from his guideline and the other two divers in Chamber 11, ending up spending three hours trapped in Chamber 13 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 (grandson of science fiction writer H. G. Wells) went on to reach the elbow of the sump upstream from Chamber 9 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 Chamber 9 was sorted out until John Parker progressed first to the large, dry, inlet passage of Chamber 20 and thence followed the River Axe upstream to Chamber 22 where the way on appeared to be lost.

Meanwhile, climbing operations in Chamber 9 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 Chambers 8 to 6 as far as Chamber 5. These discoveries were used to enable the show cave to be extended into Chamber 9 and the cave divers to start directly from here, bypassing the dive from Chamber 3 onwards.

Eventually, on 23 February 1976, Colin Edmunds found a way on in the static sump at the far end of Chamber 22. Controversially, he was beaten to the discovery of the magnificent active streamway of Chamber 24 by Geoff Yeadon and Oliver Statham a couple of days later. Edmunds returned with Martyn Farr on 27 February 1976 when the latter was able to dive from Chamber 24 into Chamber 25. To this day, Chamber 25 represents the furthest upstream air surface in Wookey Hole Cave. From here the River Axe rises up from a deep sump where progressive depth records for cave diving in the British Isles have been set: firstly by Farr (45 m or 148 ft) in 1977, then Rob Parker (68 m or 223 ft) in 1985, and finally by John Volanthen and Rick Stanton (76 m or 249 ft) in 2004. The pair returned again in 2005 to explore the sump to a depth of 90 m (300 ft), setting a new British Isles depth record for cave diving. This record was broken in 2008 by Polish explorer Artur Kozłowski on a dive in Pollatoomary in Ireland.

During 1996–1997 water samples were collected at various points throughout the caves and showed different chemical compositions. Results showed that the location of the "Unknown Junction", from where water flows to the Static Sump in Chamber 22 by a different route from the majority of the River Axe, is upstream of Sump 25.