Fairy to Hilliers

Attending Dudley Members

Kayleigh wood

Liz  Leavesley

Tash Brudenall

We all met at the Priddy Good Farm shop for breakfast at half 9 after a quick breakfast and discussion we headed off to the car park for the fairy quarry caves we got changed all light hearted fun as we all sweated in the heat excited to get underground in the cool air.

So off we go and after getting the code right for the gate, we find what i thought was fairy cave on the right hand side of the quarry as you go through the gate, so i open the gate and poke my head in and start to descend and half way down I’m thinking if i cant fit through the connection we are gonna have to climb out this way, which in the book the climb didn’t seem as bad as it was, so i decided i would go and fetch the rope out the car and rig a hand line just in case.

So all three of us are in the cave and I’m reading the description and looking at the survey and decide we should be heading left so off we go down this crawl that starts getting really tight. So with me being the biggest I’m leading. And I’m starting to struggle to get through so i asTah who is behind me to see if she can get through and see whats the other side, she looks at it but wont go through. 

So we decide to turn back and head right which I’m sure is the wrongs way but off we go and it opens up and takes us through to bigger passage was and into a chamber so we stop and I have another look at the survey and description, and to my horror I realise we are in Tar Hall.................. I’ve took us into the wrong cave!! No wonder the description doesn’t match the cave system we are in. And for a few seconds I am tempted not to tell the others and pretend I knew exactly where we were.

So I told Liz and Tash and we have a laugh about it after all we went far from where I thought we were we are in Hillier’s rather than Fairy. But they join and we were going to end up in Hillier’s anyway so we carry on. 

Now I no where we are I can lead us through with relative ease so of we go we pass the connection for Fairy and climb the mud slope and slot through the 90 degree bend and head towards the red room. We wanted to be out for 4 and it’s about half 1 when we have passed the second boulder choke just before the Cambridge Grotto, which is a bit tight for me so we decide to come back another day and I take a photo of Tash in a crawl here, and we start heading back.

I pop me head up and look at the connection to Fairy and we carry on back I take a photo of Liz in Tar Hall and we head out. When we get back to the climb out I’m glad I put in a hand line to aid us climbing out as I think we may have struggled with out it.

Afterwards Liz has to shot off but me and Tash are spending the night and so we head of to the Wessex to set up camp and have a BBQ with a few drinks and some well deserved sleep.

Withyhill Cave

On 1st November 2015 Dudley Caving Club members Phil, Ian, Brendan, Mark and myself set off for the Mendips to visit Fairy Quarry to explore Fernhill and Withyhill Caves. We explored Fernhill Cave but never got to see Withyhill. In fact I didn’t get home until 18 days later and didn’t see the inside of a cave for another 6 months. Last year I got to do Withyhill twice (15th May & 27th November) and managed to take some video. It’s a bit rubbish but the cave is fantastically decorated and hopefully the video gives a flavour of its beauty.

WL Cave

Sunday was scheduled for a nice gentle trip in to WL Cave to take a couple of photo's to complete the main caves of the Fairy Quarry.

Jess and I started the day meeting up with Keith, Kermit and Bev at the Priddy Farm Shop for their usual excellent breakfast before tootling over to the Quarry.

I wasn't expecting much out of WL and was very pleasantly surprised by the formations as we made our way through. At the end chamber I went squirrelling off in to the boulder chokes and after 10min's of poking around I returned to find that Keith had dived down an impossibly small rift passage for an explore.
On our way out we took a few photo's and were soon back in the lovely sunny day.

We finished the weekend with a late lunch at the OakHill before heading back to wash off all the mud from the days digging the day before..!

Jess in the entrance passage

Bev at The Lily Pads

Bev at Pink Pool Chamber

Keith in the entrance passage

Present: Mark, Jess, Keith, Bev & Kermit

Fairy Quarry .......The Return

After a short tip in OFD Keith felt ready to return to the scene of his unfortunate accident 6 months before.
This time Keith went fully harnessed and belayed down in to Fernhill accompanied by Ian and John to take in the splendid curtain formations whilst Kermit, Brendan and I waited at surface.

With this demon put to rest we headed in two groups in to Withyhill for an afternoon of pleasant caving and pretty formations, pausing often for photo opportunities.
At Green Lake chamber Kermit saw me struggle in through the awkward squeeze and muttered under his breath words to the effect of.....if that larger fellow can do it then so can I!......perhaps not the exact words he used ;)
With a little puffing and panting he emerged victorious in to a chamber he hadn't visited in 40years! After some smiles and photos we continued on to the end of our trip, Column Chamber, before making our way out again.
Keith was feeling a little sore by the time we exited and little dehydrated and so this was used as a good excuse to stop off for a drink in the pub before heading off our separate ways.

Ian admires a magnificent curtain just before Pearl Chamber (Photo Mark Burkey)

Keith and John in Column Chamber (Photo Mark Burkey)

Kermit admires the formations in the entrance series (Photo Mark Burkey)

The Baobab Tree (Photo Brendan Marris)

Jack at Elephant Trunk Chamber (Photo Brendan Marris)

Jack admires a curtain in Elephant Trunk Chamber (Photo Brendan Marris)

Kermit back in Green Lake Chamber (Photo Brendan Marris)

Present: (Party 1: Brendan, Kermit & Jack) (Party 2: John, Mark, Kieth & Ian)

Fairy Quarry Wriggles and Giggles

Saturday saw a good number of Dudley Caving Club enjoying a breakfast at the Priddy Good Farm Shop. As Keith often says, “No refunds once the breakfast is consumed” , so despite it being really chilly, off we went to Fairy Quarry to go caving.

Our first destination was the Fairy Cave to Hilliers through trip. Mike and Richard were keen to route find, so they went ahead of the group and we did our best to send them down all the tight horrible bits that weren’t the way on. 

The tight squeeze on the way to Hilliers was as wet and nasty as ever but posed no problems to the group (once Mark had rearranged his ribs) and soon we were at the connection with Hilliers. Pointing out that we were not far from the entrance to Hilliers, we nonetheless headed away from it and into the cave to explore it fully.

With the boys trying to remember what they had read in the survey (which they’d left in the car) Mike got sidetracked down a tight rift that went nowhere, much to the amusement of Lucy, Mark and Brendan, while Marc carried on with Rich to route find, with me following.

Marc has done a few trips with Dudley but perhaps Hilliers has not turned out to be his favourite… it could be described as “ a couple of hundred metres of boulder choke, with one or two places that you can stand up in”, and quite a few times he was heard to say “are you sure this is the way on?”

The Red Room at the end, though, is really quite spectacular, and there are some very pretty sections en route too.  Once Marc and Rich had had a good look round, we set off back towards the entrance, meeting the others on the way. When Rich heard how Mike had struggled to get back out of the rift, he was determined to have a go himself but found it easy compared to some of the contortions we have already been through.

With Rich leading the way we headed out. At one point I looked up to the left at a familiar-looking climb, but ignored it and followed Rich instead through ever more flat-out crawls, until he realized that we were heading towards the sump that links Hilliers Cave to Hillwithy Cave – oops! Turning back and looking again at the climb up, I remembered that it was indeed the entrance to Hilliers, so up we went.

After a short wait in freezing conditions, Kermit arrived to take the group into Shatter Cave, where they were very impressed by the lovely formations. Mark and I went off to take a couple of pictures back in Hilliers while we waited, but we soon got far too cold and were dressed and sitting in a warm van by the time the others got back. A very good day!

Hillier's Entrance Rift

Present: Mark, Marc, Jess, Rich, Brendan, Mike, Lucy & Brendan

Trip Report Jess

Fairy Cave to Hillier's Through Trip

Present: Chloe Burney & Mark Burgess

Fairy Quarry Through Trip

Jess had offered to play buxom bar maid for the Priddy folk festival this year, so I extended an offer out for a couple of trips in the Mendips followed by a couple of beers.
Keith, Chloe, Ian and Mark Burgess joined me on the Saturday for a through trip from Fairy to Hilliers.
Mr E brought his drone to take footage for his latest Dudley epic from the skies, and much fun was had messing around for the opening sequences.
A few stills below give a feel for what is to come, but I won’t give too much away here……..it’s gonna be awesome!
We……eventually dropped in through the Fairy cave entrance and made our way through the various crawls to the aqueous connection to squeeze in to Hilliers.
Upper Grotto. We continued on through the connection to Cambridge grotto, Brenda’s Chamber and through Suicide Choke to the Red Room. Here I spent a little time playing with my new Macro lens before we headed back out via Tar Hall and the Entrance rift. As we climbed out Keith Spotted some rather large Cave Spiders for me, so out the Macro came again!
A fun trip which looks to have made some great video. I look forward to seeing the finished results!

Proving Chloe is the Apple of Mark's Eye

Meta Menardi Cave Spider

The Good, The Bad & The Dudley

Connecting Squeeze

This Cave Just A'int Big Enough For The Two Of Us!

Present: Keith Edwards, Chloe Burney, Ian Millward, Mark Burgess & Mark Burkey

No Fairies on this trip! Fairy cave to Hillier's Through Trip.

On the Saturday we had been into Wetsink in the Forest of Dean but, after spending a night in a field in heavy rain, we decided we fancied a change of scenery and headed over the Severn for a day in the Mendips. We arrived in time for a Priddy Good breakfast and trundled off to Fairy Caves Quarry to get changed. I had liked the sound of the Fairy Cave to Hillier’s through trip since reading about it a number of months ago, and the Burkey’s had popped into Hillier’s recently and decided it was a ‘Chloe kind of cave’ and so a plan was hatched. We jumped into the cave entrance and went squirreling off in various directions to find the way on. Mark checked high and Jess and I checked low. After poking our heads into various muddy slippery holes, we admitted defeat and quickly ran back to the van to have a quick read of the description. The way on turned out to be a flat out crawl under a slab up in one of the higher level chambers we had looked in originally. We stopped for a ‘quick’ photo before I took the lead and carried on through the cave. I took much delight in scrambling over boulders and crawling through the puddles until we came to the connection squeeze. On their previous visit to these caves, Mark had politely declined to go through the eyelet squeeze from the Hillier’s side (Wussed out!) scaring himself by following Jess the wrong way through drop out rift and watching a YouTube video of another caver getting a little stuck! It turned out there was no reason at all for Mark to be such a fairy as he flew through it as fast as Jess and me. I carried on in front of the group through Hillier’s with a huge grin on my face as they had been very right when they thought it was a ‘Chloe cave’. After a short time the smile was temporarily wiped from my face as I had to cross a small traverse to the right to explore the rest of the cave, left went to the entrance series. Mark told me it was a very linear cave and couldn’t go wrong so I shot off ahead. I perhaps took him a little literally when he said ‘linear’ as at a junction I opted for the tight smooth rift in front of me rather than going up over the boulders to our left. Lay on my side, half way through the awkward 8ft rift section I turned back to Mark to ask if I was going the correct way. His reply was ‘well it looks like the way on’. Of course they didn’t follow me as it was only the way on to some small straws and some more flat out crawling over slippery mud. On the way back through the tight rift, I lost my wellie, at which point Mark said ‘oh it’s all coming back to me now’ and recalled that it wasn’t the way on and he had also lost his wellie coming back through the same section. Helpful! After showing that given 2 choices of direction in a cave I always seem to pick the wrong one, Mark took the lead and took us though the remainder of Hillier’s, through the Suicide Choke to the Red Room. On the way back through the choke, I lost sight of Jess ahead of me and once again dived a little too enthusiastically down the wrong hole. Jess retraced her steps after my shouts for assistance, to find just my toes poking out of a hole and me facing at a 45 degree angle into the floor without sufficient room to turn around. I found lying on my chest suffocating so rolled onto my back, only to scare myself as the huge boulder above me appeared to be defying the laws of gravity! After several careful minutes of bottom wiggling and Jess pulling on my feet, I was back on the right track. The remainder of the trip was thankfully uneventful and before I knew it we were out at the cars, eating cakes!

The last undamaged grotto in Fairy cave.

Trip Report Chloe Burney

Present: Mark Burkey, Jess Burkey & Chloe Burney

Shattered on a Saturday

Mark had been invited back to Shatter Cave by Kermit to take a few more photos, so we arranged to meet up at 2pm at the Fairy Caves Quarry. We left Stratford, with Keith, about half 9 to make sure we could fit in a decent brunch on the way. A lie in, on a caving Saturday!!  Unfortunately the traffic through Bristol was heavy and as we approached Mendipshire we realised that the Priddy Good Farm Shop would not be serving breakfast when we arrived, so we were forced to stop en route at a garden centre caff.

We met up with Kermit and were introduced to his friend John who would be our ‘leader for the day’. If you’ve been into Shatter you’ll know that even I would struggle to get lost, so 2 leaders was possibly overkill, but he was very pleasant and came in useful for holding Mark’s flashguns.  As I hadn’t been in before, Kermit and I went ahead so he could show me the whole cave while Mark and Keith were setting up shots in the main chambers.

Suffice to say I was very impressed with the formations in Shatter, you really don’t know where to look first, and many are both large and pure white, such as the Angel Wing at the far reaches of the cave. After a whistle-stop tour, Kermit and I joined the others back at Tor Chamber where we posed for photos and a short piece of video on the way out.

A very pleasant hour was spent chatting to Kermit and John in the Queen Vic before they had to leave. It was unusual to feel so relaxed and not tired at all on a Saturday, almost like cheating, but the next day more than made up for it…

Jess in Tor Chamber

Trip report: Jess Burkey

Present: Mark Burkey, Jess Burkey, Keith Edwards and our leaders Kermit and John.

Withyhill & Fernhill Caves

For our second day we were left with just Chloe, Jess and Myself.

Todays adventures would be in Withyhill cave and then a quick romp in to Fernhill.

We met for a very civilised 10am start with Martin, our trip leader for the day, at the quarry car park. The heavens opened as we changed and we were all glad to get out of the cold and wet and in to one of the prettiest caves in the quarry.
We took in Broken Curtain Chamber, Pearl Chamber, Elephant Trunk Chamber, Helictite Corner and Column Chamber via a mixture of walking, aqueous crawling before reaching the squeeze up in to green lake chamber. There had been some doubt as to if I'd manage to get through this awkward squeeze, but after a lot of pushing and wriggling I was finally in and I must say the view was well worth the effort! Fortunately getting out was actually easier than getting in and the rest of the trip was spent clicking away with the camera as we made our exit.

Fernhill was a short ladder climb to a single chamber which has some of the most stunning curtains I have ever seen. I was fortunate to be offered a chance of photographing these before we headed back out to more cold wet weather.

A great end to a fun weekend.

Chloe in Broken Curtain Chamber

Jess near Barabobath's Bath

Chloe in Green Lake Chamber

Martin at the Fernhill Curtains

Present: Chloe Burney, Jess Burkey & Mark Burkey

Shattered in the Mendips

Chloe had taken a look through the new Mendip Underground publication at the beginning of the year and requested a couple of trips in to the Fairy Quarry caves.
 After drawing names from a hat for the places we wound up with Mel, Loz, Keith, Myself and Chloe for the first Fairy Quarry Cave of the weekend: Shatter Cave.
 After waving off the others we had a couple of hours to kill as we were not going in until 2pm, so Keith, Chloe and myself headed in to Stoke St.Micheal where we settled in to a local pub for a couple of cups of coffee.
 We met with 'Kermit', our leader for the day, at the quarry car park at 2pm and then had to await the late Loz Appleby to arrive.
We had decided to give the girls until 2.30pm and they arrived with just a couple of minutes to spare!

All changed we headed off in to shatter cave with Kermit taking the lead. The caving itself was straight forward and we were soon ooohing and arrring at the decorated chambers as we made our way in through Diesel, Canopy and Tor chambers which had a distinctly continental feel to the formations. We then made our way through Pisa Passage with its odd shaped Stalagmite formation and finally to the stunning Pillar chamber.
On our return Keith took some video whilst I clicked away with the camera, and after just 4 hours we were making our way back to the cars.
 After a quick change we said our good byes to Kermit and headed off to Priddy to meet up with the others at the Queen Victoria for good food and company.

Chloe in Pillar Chamber

Loz in Pisa Passage

Mel in The Ring Road before Pillar Chamber

Present: Loz Appleby, Keith Edwards, Mel Bell, Mark Burkey and Chloe Burney.