Cross Joints Swallet

Location


Grid Reference: SO 5622 1385

Altitude: 106m

Cross Joints Swallet is situated between the main track and the stream running down the Mailscot Valley, near to Symonds Yat.

Access
Not Gated. Contact Forest of Dean Cave Conservation and Access Group (FODCCAG) for a permit.

Description
Length: 170m

Vertical range: 35m

The cave basically consists of a single passage which leads to a pitch and large chamber. It's a Forest classic and one definitely worth visiting.

The entrance is a cross shaped hole immediately below a large boulder. The stream runs nearby in a diversion trench. If the stream is entering the cave, the entire streamway will be impassable and the dam needs to be re-built! A check should be made on the stability of the diversion before entry.

Some leaf and stick debris may need to be removed from the entrance which immediately becomes a low and tight crawl. A few squeezes are passed and an inlet/small stream is reached appearing from the left. This is followed downstream, with proportions enlarging slightly as another inlet is reached on the left. The stream passage is surprisingly well decorated. After some time crawling, it is necessary to squeeze through a boulder blockage. Shortly it becomes possible to stand up and the head of the 10m pitch (The Jump) is reached. This opens directly out into the impressive chamber of Hyperspace; some 15m in diameter and 27m high. In the floor of the chamber some voids and digs between the boulders can be penetrated. Further inlets at the top of the pitch and from other points in the chamber.

The water from this cave has been dye-traced to the Slaughter resurgence around a kilometre distant.

Rigging
The Jump pitch requires a 10m ladder. There are natural belays for ladder and line a few metres back from the pitch head. Long slings, long tethers and/or a rigging rope required.

History
First dug by Roger Solari of RFDCC in 1972. Main breakthrough to Hyperspace by Norman Flux of Sheffield USS and others in 1981.

Survey
See RFDCC newsletter no. 84, page 6.