Twll Gwynt Oer
A Significant Find in
Having watched the rapid advance of the quarry towards OFD,
some members of SWCC decided to take a closer look at some of the shakeholes in
the dry valley above the quarry. The
drainage of this region has already been proven by dye testing to feed into the
OFD system. To his surprise Brian
Jopling found a hollow that gently breathed cold air. Cold air hole was fairly intensively dug out
over the Easter weekend and later in the week a little Mendip digging fever saw
to the breakthrough into a small, fault-aligned passage carrying a sizeable
stream, whose sound had previously urged the diggers on.
Upstream has not yet been forced to any conclusion - the
size of the stream during the dry conditions prevalent in
Whatever happens, it shows that OFD is not finished
yet. While on the subject, may I be bold
enough to suggest that the new survey will prove OFD to be nearer 30 miles in
length, and not just over 20 miles, as usually quoted.
Access Problems
Visiting the area around Y Gwal and The Hole by the Wall
(Hutton Pot) just above Ystradfellte, recently I found that the top of the
latter had been almost blocked with very large boulders of grit. I spoke with the farmer about this and he
confirmed that it was his doing, in order to prevent calves becoming stuck in
the hole. He was unwilling to have it
re-opened and a fence erected around the site, as cavers rarely returned every
so often to maintain and repair such fences. He pointed to the gaping hole of Y Gwal, which had been fenced around by
In