Perseverance Pot/Axe Hole/Plunge Hole - Alan Brentnall

A cold night, with a waxing moon, and just the four of us (Jane, Bernie, Julian and myself) gathered at the end of the caravan park road at Ladmanslow for an interesting wander around the Stanley Moor swallets. After finishing the work at Waterways Swallet on the previous Saturday, I decided to drive home via Harpur Hill and Long Hill, and this gave me the opportunity to pinpoint the location of Perseverance Pot - previous trips to this particular cave have always ended with a prolonged sweep search!!

So, I can tell you:- the way to find it is to follow the main track towards the old reservoir and watch for another wide, grassy track (which is almost parallel to the main track) joining from the right. At the point where the two tracks meet, look back over your right shoulder, and you should see a large doline. In a tiny valley on the eastern rim of the doline you will find a sheet of wiggly tin. Beneath this is Perseverance Pot!

And this is exactly what we did, although, in the dark, it wasn't quite as clear as it was on Saturday afternoon. But pretty soon I was lifting off the corrugated steel cover to reveal two heavy iron grills held in place by large stones and huge, grassy sods. Working as a team, we quickly removed the cave's remaining covers, trying very hard to remember the order so that we could replace everything after the trip.

The entrance is a little tight; more technical than tight, really, and the ever-present soil, which cascades over you as you carefully slot yourself into the hole, can be a bit off-putting, but it wasn't too long before all four of us were through the gnarly little entrance and sitting in a steep, bouldery passage. The way on was a clamber down to a point where a shimmy leftwards brought us to a steep pitch marked by an iron hook, hammered into the wall (this is an Eldon discovery, no P-bolts here!).

So, tying our "handline" to this single-point-of-failure, we each gingerly climbed downwards. The pitch narrows and forces the climber out into a wider passage which drops down into a maze of chambers and passages, all of which eventually peter out. You can see why Eldon persevered with this place; it seems to offer glimpses of real promise. Eventually EPC did give up - but we all agreed that there must be a way on somewhere ... it just needs the right level of determination to find the breakthrough.

We found the climb back up to the surface quite testing, and re-arranging the grills, sods, stones and wiggly tin at the entrance taxed our memories too. But soon we were walking towards the old reservoir, where, in the last shake-hole before the wall, we found the new galavanised grid which marked the entrance to Axe Hole. A few years back, a boulder had collapsed onto this cave and a DCRO engineering exercise was arranged, involving the team's "chemical persuader". Once the boulder had been obliterated, a DCA project took over, stabilising the entrance and providing the galvo grid as an animal-proof lid.

We used a rope on the climb down more for navigational purposes than as a climbing aid. Axe Hole is a labyrinth of passages (see Dave Edwards's survey) and we spent a good hour pushing little passages and climbs. It's quite a muddy place as it does take a live stream which is coming off a very muddy moor, and, on this occasion, it was still quite wet from recent floods which had brought in quite a lot of soil. Again there's stacks of potential, and, again, we wondered whether future explorers might extend the labyrinth towards Pooles Cavern, the other side of the hill.

Finally we headed over to Plunge Hole, where the main stream from Stanley Moor sinks. I'd brought a ladder for this, and I lined the other three down the pitch so that they could have a quick look around the chambers below. This cave isn't quite as extensive as the other two, although it is possible to dig your way through the sludge and make a connection with Axe Hole. The rusting scaffold tubes and platform give evidence to the amount of engineering which must have gone into exploration here last century, but, again, the push had long been abandoned. Time for others to pick up the baton? 

So ... three interesting caves, and a promise to return in warmer dryer times for another look. You never know your luck!