Ireby Fell Cavern
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| Ireby Fell Cavern | |
|---|---|
 Looking north across entrance sink hole |
|
| Location | Leck Fell, North Yorkshire, England |
| Depth | 128 metres (420 ft)[1] |
| Length | 4,600 metres (2.9 mi)[1] |
| Coordinates | |
| Cave Survey | survex plot |
| Discovery | 1949 |
| Geology | Limestone |
| Number of entrances | 1 |
| Difficulty | Grade 4 |
| Access | Free [2] |
Ireby Fell Cavern is a cave system on Leck Fell, North Yorkshire, England.
This popular cave starts with a pitch series that eventually opens out into a very large series of dry sandy passages.
The entrance is a vertical concrete pipe at the bottom of a shakehole that was last shored up in 2006.[3] The traditional route is down three pitches (Ding, Dong, and Bell), but there is an alternative Shadow route which escapes most of the water flow in wet weather. After many metres of hands and knees crawling is Well Pitch which accesses the main lower sandy passages known as Duke Street.
At the far end of Duke Street is Whirlpool chamber where a short sump (not free-diveable) gave access to cave divers into further passages known as Ireby II.
In early 2007, a system involving a primitive hand pump[4] and a mud dam to temporarily retain the water in an artificial lake in Duke Street has allowed non-divers to enter this part of the cave.[5] There has also been extensive cave digging to find an alternative sump bypass.
Although first explored in 1949, the entrance of this cave was blocked for ten years between 1953 and 1963.[6]
Recent digging has forged a dry bypass to the sump via the aptly named Cripple Creek.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Des Marshal, Donald Rust (1997). Selected Caves of Britain and Ireland. ISBN 1-871-89043-8.
- ^ CNCC Website - Caving Access: Three Counties System. Retrieved on 2008-03-04.[]
- ^ Jack Pickup (April/May 2006). "Ireby's rumoured collapse". Descent (189): page 11. ISSN 0046-0036.
- ^ Thursday Night Club: 8th Nov 2007 - Ireby Fell Cavern
- ^ Simon Wilson (April/May 2007). "Plumbing know-how breaks Ireby sump". Descent (195): page 13. ISSN 0046-0036.
- ^ T. Reynolds (1963). Reopening the cavern - Ireby Fell. Northern Pennine Club.
