Introduction The alcove in Moonmilk Pot Moonmilk Pot, (although only a short cave), is a continuation of the original passage down into the hillside and is heading straight down into the unexplored area between Riverside Swallet and Prospect Chamber, (and the nearby 8m (25ft) waterfall, as yet unreached), in Darfar Pot.  Passage remnant from above  Passage remnant from below Inside the cave is a descending mud and rubble slope, (sumped when the river is in flood), which we think the bottom end of, will turn out to be what stopped the Orpheus C.C. from extending Riverside Swallet towards (the then undiscovered) Darfar Pot in the 1970's. The walls of the cave are covered in red and white Moonmilk, (hence the name), and a small alcove in one wall is home to two of the youngest properly developed stal formations in a natural cave in the valley. They are only about 1m (3ft) above the level of the river when it is in full flood.
The entrance of Moonmilk Pot was excavated in 1980 and was through about 5m (15ft) of unstable and water lubricated mud and rocks. Three oil drums were installed in it to keep the cave open. Unfortunately, due to someone throwing some large rocks down it, it had to be re-opened in 1985. The oil drums were removed and then replaced and some concrete placed around the top one. At some point afterwards, a fourth oil drum, protruding above the surface, was added to the top of the shaft to prevent rocks becoming detached from the cliff above from falling down the entrance shaft and possibly blocking it.  Moonmilk Pot at start of work At the end of November 2006, I re-established the route down to the cave entrances from the top of the crag so that work could be carried out even while the river was flooded during the winter. The route to and from the caves involved a 35m (110ft) scramble with a 8m (25ft) climb at the bottom! A handline was fixed on the top part of the route, (which was lethally slippy after rain), and a ladder and lifeline / abseil rope rigged on the bottom section. (The climb.) The first photo (above right) shows the entrance shaft after the first of the two bottom oil drums was removed. The work got progressively more difficult as we went deeper, due to the difficult climb out of the shaft.  Moonmilk Pot with ladder This photo show the shaft after a 4m (12ft.) aluminium ladder was temporarily installed after the bottom oil drum was removed. This made climbing in and out much easier and meant we didn't have to keep climbing up the unstable wall of mud and rocks that made up 3 out of 4 of the walls of the shaft! Entry was finally regained on February 4th 2007. A quick look around the chamber inside showed that the small formations and the Moonmilk walls were undamaged.  Squalid working conditions! Shortly afterwards, work was started on building a permanent concreted block shaft back up to the surface. A very muddy process. (See above photo.)  Moonmilk Pot - Feb 28th. Over the next few weeks, the concrete block wall was gradually built up towards the surface and eventually the aluminium ladder was no longer required due to the incorporation of hand and foot holds into the structure of the wall. (Which meant there was MUCH more room to work in the shaft.)  Moonmilk Pot - Mar 2nd By March 2nd, the wall was almost to the bottom of the newest (top) oil drum, which we managed to get out. (See photo left.)
We then built the wall up some more and also filled in behind it with rocks, ready for building up a natural looking, (but concreted), limestone wall for the remaining distance to the surface.  Moonmilk Pot - Mar 9th On March 6th, I started sorting some natural rocks out for use in the top part of the wall and by March 9th, the wall was almost up to the surface. (See photo right.) During the 13th and 14th of March the wall was built up to the surface and extended round to the right to join up with the cliff face. Concrete lintels were added to support the new manhole frame/cover, the river side of the shaft was sorted by removing the 'hanging death' and (mostly) dry stone walling up to the top.  Moonmilk Pot with manhole in place Then any fallen debris was removed from the shaft bottom, the squeeze into the rest of the cave was enlarged a bit and rocks were strategically placed around the surface ready for concreting. (See photo left.) Finally, we started tidying the gully up, placing all the rubbish into rubble sacks ready for collection by the National Trust. On the 17th of March, half of the surface rocks were cleaned and concreted and on the 18th, Chris, Graham, Ian and Pete joined me to finish off the concreting, flatten off the ground leading to the top entrance of Darfar Pot and then spread a large amount of chipped bark on the ground to tidy it all up. (See photos below.)  Moonmilk Pot with finished shaft top and ground surface  Darfar Pot with finished ground surface  The finished entrance shaft All done! Project completed on March 18th 2007. It took 12 visits to re-open the cave, then 19 visits to complete the walling up of the entrance shaft, install the new shaft top and tidy up the gully.
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