Troglodyte noun uk /ˈtrɒɡ.lə.daɪt/ us /ˈtrɑː.ɡlə.daɪt/ A person who lives in a cave, especially a person who lived in a cave in prehistoric times (= the period before there were written records):
Cambridge Dictionary
Singing, drinking in the caves, all night yeah! Pretty Vicious
When I get annoyed with the world – which is constantly and especially when I’m driving – I joke that I’ve had enough and I’m going to live in a cave away from all the dickheads. Lately however with the possibility of the current wotsit coloured dictator of the US or the gremlin from the Kremlin, firing a nuclear weapon at another country, this cave dwelling might actually become an option. History it seems is, in some cases doomed to repeat itself. But also apparently get much more absurd. On that cheerful note this blog is all about an old mine, a cave and a bunch of people who did go and live in a cave.
It’s about 7am on a Sunday Morning and I’m sat here wrapped up in my hoody typing up these opening sentences of this blog. My gear is waiting by the door, ready for me to grab it and leave, while I attempt to caffeinate myself into something resembling a fully functioning adult. I may just manage to get to partly functioning person, adult is pushing it a bit for for this time in the morning. The early morning is damp and dingy beyond the kitchen windows and already looking like the sort of day where most people would choose to stay in bed, or get comfy, have a “do nothing” day, and watch the rain streak the glass of their windows from behind the steam of a hot cup of tea or coffee. I would totally do this – however adventure is calling and it’s louder than the voice telling me to chill out, so instead of staying all cosy I’m going to have to get up off my ass soon and get ready to squeeze myself down another muddy hole in the floor.
There was a big storm yesterday called ‘Storm Amy’ and it’s aftermath might make getting where I’m going a bit more of a challenge, so I’m up early in case I’ve got to re-route around any fallen trees or bits of roofing. If you have read any of the other blogs you know by now, I’m really not a morning person. I’m still scowling into the middle distance until I finish my third cup of tea, then I grab my gear , jump in the car and begin the journey to Derbyshire to meet up with Clare and Andy. The cave we are heading to I’d not heard of before until Clare mentioned it and despite being half awake I’m looking forward to checking it out.
Soon we are all stood in a carpark in Matlock Bath, checking our gear and getting ourselves ready to vanish into the ground like multi-coloured moles. Leaving the carpark we hike a short distance uphill to the cave entrance which gapes like the black of a yawning mouth towards us as we change into our caving suits amongst the falling Autumn leaves.Getting into the cave is an awkward clamber over a protective wall and I manoeuvre carefully so I don’t up up being a casualty before we even get into the place. As we enter the air begins to rush past us which is a natural phenomena I should be used to however it still feels eerie, like being sucked into another world.
Further inside the mine we stop and look around. I see the levels above like stone balconies at various heights above the floor. As usual, we pass rotting timbers and at one point, a metal bucket that has seen better days. In places the walls reflect back small sparkles of light, caused by the refection of our headtorches from the remaining minerals in the darkness.
Disappointingly, the mine has far less visible formations of crystals and minerals these days thanks to mineral collectors. Every now and then I spot a rotting newspaper with discarded specimens left by the aforementioned mineral molesters. Thankfully in sone harder to reach areas, some crystals still remain though I doubt they are as impressive as the ones removed. It’s annoying that there are clearly places all over the mine where those with more thought for profit than conservation have chipped away at formations and removed what may have been a more stunning aspect of this place.
Random Meetings Of Cavers
While still exploring the mine where passages wind up and over each other in a very photogenic but pretty disorientating way, we hear voices and we are met with a troop of other cavers. Clare knows one of these guys and has a casual chat with them which strikes me as slightly amusing considering we are deep underground, it makes the exchange seem less mundane than it would on the surface. When the other cavers begin to continue on their own adventure, one of them pauses, possibly checking his watch on the climb up the slope to the next level. At that moment as I take a photograph our multiple headtorches illuminate the massive space perfectly for a shot, emphasising the depth and scale.
The History
As with most places we explore, Wapping Mine and Cumberland cavern have an interesting history. During the 18th century, Wapping mine was worked for lead and later mined extensively for Flurospar between the 1920’s and 1950’s.Flurospar was originally just a by-product of lead mining until the 1900’s when it found use as a flux, used in Steel production to remove impurities.
During the extraction, the majority of the passages existing in Wapping Mine were enlarged and new ones dug. This has left the place looking like Swiss cheese, with the most chaotic and difficult to navigate area of the mine being ‘the maze’ at the North-west end which we briefly pass through.
Cumberland Cavern
Cumberland cavern was opened in 1780 as a show cave. The original entrance is sealed after a major collapse in 1954, and the only way to access the cavern is of course through Wapping Mine – which is exactly what we are doing. Steps lead down into the darkness to the wishing well, the centres of these steps worn assumedly from the feet of many Victorians and filled with muddy water. It’s difficult to imagine long dead Victorians ladies in giant dresses and men in suits making their way down here, but they loved that kind of thing. At the time I think the wishing well has seen better days, at least until I get home and realise it’s not far from how it looked in Victorian times.
For those readers who don’t know superstitious customs in the UK a wishing well is a place where you throw coins into water to gain the favour of water spirits and be granted good luck. If you believe that sort of thing. All I’ve got in my wallet is one of those tokens for replacing a pound in a trolley I wonder how much of a wish I’d get for that? Maybe a Cadbury’s Freddo and a slap.
Further into the cave system we start to find the graffiti of the Troggs on the walls, scrawled in the soot of old camp fires beneath the earth. It doesn’t seem like a wise place for a fire but they must have managed it judging by all the writing.
Who Were The Troggs?
The walls are plastered with the sooty names and words of the past occupants, like the ravings of a madman scrawled on the wall in a horror movie asylum. Judging by a lot of the graffiti, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to form the idea that the Troggs were also pretty fond of smoking weed, considering the many mentions of ‘dope’ such as the words ‘Land of dope and story’ a place which if it did exist I expect would have lots of cookie shops. Though it’s technically vandalism, the scrawling’s are strangely photogenic, and now around 50-60 years old, which makes you wonder how old graffiti needs to be before it becomes history instead of vandalism. Will there be Archaeologist’s looking at the scrawling’s in your local pubs bathroom in 300 years?
The Troggs were a group of young people who chose camp in and party in the many caves dotted around the area of Matlock Bath, apparently in rebellion against society when life in Britain was becoming particularly hard. Maybe they had nowhere else to go, or wanted to be somewhere else apart from where they had been or possibly they felt safer underground knowing what was going on in the wider world. After spending cuts and tax increases, the government of the time had planned to improve the economic growth of the country, however the plans failed which led to massive inflation and rising unemployment another reason young people may have felt society was failing them.
The backdrop to this was the ever present fear of nuclear war, the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union. The term ‘Cold War’ was coined by writer George Orwell and referred to a nuclear stalemate between “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” part of this was a nuclear arm’s race between the superpowers. What an uncomfortable world to grow up.
On that basis I think we can all agree if you don’t have a nuclear bunker living in caves away from society doesn’t sound too bad. Though if a nuke was dropped it’s debatable how much protection unsealed caverns would have provided. The fear of nuclear detonations was not unreasonable with the whole world close to the brink on the several occasions including when the US had ‘broken arrow incidents’ most of which but not all were cleaned up in secrecy.
A few examples:
1958, Mars Bluff, South Carolina: A B‑47 bomber accidentally dropped an unarmed nuclear bomb on the Gregg family’s property. It was missing the fissile core, but the 7,600 pounds of explosives still detonated.
1961, Goldsboro, North Carolina: A B‑52 broke apart mid‑air, dropping two MK39 hydrogen bombs. One bomb’s arming mechanism activated, and only a single low‑voltage safety switch prevented detonation.
1966, Palomares, Spain: A mid‑air collision caused a B‑52 to drop four hydrogen bombs. Two conventional explosive triggers detonated, spreading plutonium across the area.
1968, Thule, Greenland: A B‑52 crash dropped four nuclear weapons onto the ice. One was never recovered.
That’s 11 nuclear bombs accidentally dropped in a ten‑year period — which is pretty terrifying when you think about it. Maybe there’s something to this living‑in‑a‑cave business after all. And on that note, click on the link below and Nukemap will show you a rough idea of what would happen if a W-39 American Hydrogen Bomb was dropped on Matlock Bath (unless you are of a nervous disposition)
Requiem For The Extreme 