Actually Roaring Hole was a mistake - we were supposed to be looking at Fault Pot as a potential Thursday night dig, but our map reading wasn't up to it. After digging out the old entrance, we found the first chamber to be a very unstable steep boulder slope with bits of rotting wood for shoring. Gordon Batty set us to work making stone terraces to stabilise the weight. This took three months of drudgery as we rolled stones backwards and forwards so we could go to the pub sooner. One interesting aspect at this point, is that we were finding it harder and harder to climb out through the entrance hole until we realised that the boulders at the entrance were slowly sliding down the slope closing the entrance off - we hurriedly cemented them in place.

The second boulder choke in the next chamber was unexpected and was going to take some time to pass, and we soon realised that to be able to work down here, the water would have to be piped. At this point we also discovered that, apart from taking all the surface drainage water from P 101 via Hallam Moss Cave and Sweet Water Hole, the Meregill Hole diversion channel was bringing water across to Sweet Water Hole. After we had blocked this, the volume of water in Roaring Hole was considrably reduced. Two dams were built, but these proved inadequate, and a larger one on the bandstand with two 6" pipes was finally constructed to take the volume of water. We had, by now, seen Roaring Hole in flood and realised what we had to deal with. After initially tiptoeing through the boulders in the large chamber, we were soon hitting them with lump hammers. The breakthrough came quite suddenly, in fact most of the team had already left for the pub when Gordon and I popped through into the streamway - but Roaring Hole didn't give up easily, and the inevitable third choke was encountered. This was to be a test of endurance. It had taken nearly a year to reach this point, every Thursday night, except for two nights when the shakehole had been full of 20 ft. of snow, which took a little time to dig out! A fourth dam was now built at the Cascades and work started on the choke. Six months later, the A team had departed for Fountains Fell leaving the B team of Andy Walsh, Alan Steele and myself to carry on. Andy supplied a lot of the shoring material, which he had picked up off the shorline after Morecambe Pier had been washed away in a storm - this made the dig smell very fishy! Progress was very slow, but one night the draught seemed to be increasing and expectations were rising. The Roaring Hole jinx struck again - a stone slipped hitting me in the face breaking a tooth, and there was a sudden rush of water. We assumed a dam had broken and at leisure climbed out to repair it, but quickly realised the pot was in flood. Getting through the second boulder choke was like escaping from a sinking submarine. Alan Steele had his spectacles washed away - no-one volunteered to go back to look for them, and he bought a new pair for £70, which was a pity, as when we went back a fortnight later after our confidence had returned, we found them in a pool. This illustrated the care needed with Roaring Hole with the weather. After visiting the hole every week for 1½ years, we were surprised by the flood pulse. It had rained during the day, not excessively, and apparently ad only put down a fine drizzle whilst we were underground. We could only assume because of its long drainage area, it had taken some time for the day's rain to come through. However, next trip a fortnight later, we did in fact make the breakthrough into Mason's Chamber. This, at first, seemed to be an impasse, until Andy squeezed between some boulders, and a way on was revealed. The next boulder choke needed only a few boulders pulling out, and we were in to the main stream passage to be halted by, what appeared to us in our elation, a magnificent pitch (the first of many to come?). We were misled by all the climbing down through boulder chambers and chokes, for although we had only used one ladder into the second chamber (and this is free climbable) we were in fact, on a subsequent survey, almost at 400 ft. with only another potential 50 ft. before the sump level.

A few days later the A team reappeared with hundreds of feet of ladder and rope. The magnificent pitch into the final rift turned out to be a 25 ft. ladder climb with the rift blocked at both ends (although Andy and I have dug at the south end towards Sunset Hole, it still goes, but is very tight). Glyn Edwards traversed out left from the top of the pitch into a high continuation of the rift, and the roar of considerable water was heard. A little work opened up a 15 ft. pitch, a tight muddy rift led to a constricted 14 ft. pitch into a flooded canal, taking Sunset water over a terminal 30 ft. pitch into the sump. This whole lower level obviously floods to the roof in wet weather - but if it is as wet as that, you probably won't be able to get out or through the Morecambe Pier pitch anyway!

F. Walker