There has been a lot of interest in England recently over the 'new discovery' of Britain's largest cave, with extensive television and newspaper coverage.The cave is called 'Titan' and was in fact discovered on 1st January 1999.It is located in Derbyshire's Peak District close to Castleton.I am fortunate to be a member of the team still working in Titan.

Dave 'Moose' Nixon, one of the original discoverers is shown jumaring up the upper half of Titan. The 'black hole' in the far distance (known as the 'Event Horizon') is actually the half-way point of the ascent!

Although originally discovered, and climbed, from below, a team of diggers have spent nearly six years tunnelling 47 metres vertically from the surface, before then tunnelling 30 metres horizontally (mostly through solid rock) to access Titan from above.(See figure in the 'Breakthrough window' left)

A 71 metre free abseil leads to the 'Event Horizon' and a further 55 metres (usually through a waterfall) lands the caver on a boulder strewn floor, over 180 metres from the surface. Looking around, the immensity of the place is only apparent because even powerful caving lamps do not penetrate the vast emptiness. The original explorers were only made aware of how big the place really was as they realized that water drops were hitting them at near terminal velocity!

A crawl through an extensive and,in parts,constricted boulder choke then gives access to about 17 kilometres of some of Britain's finest cave, the Peak Cavern and Speedwell systems, including the spectacular White River Series.

Titan was formed by a system that emerges into it about 20 metres below the breakthrough window. The digging team are at present trying to gain access to this system. The obvious way in via Titan is too loose and dangerous, being a vast boulder choke (a legacy of the last ice-age). We are instead trying to access it via another part of the choke that winds away from the base of the descent shaft from the surface.At present we have dug vertically down for about 18 metres through mobile and dangerous boulder choke, using extensive shoring / shuttering as we progress. We are, we hope, very close to a breakthrough, Tell-tale signs are starting to appear. What lies beyond is anyone's guess - but, it made Titan remember!

The lower photographs show some of 'The Titan Team' (author far right) also Dave Ross exiting the Boulder Choke into the base of Titan.

Dennis J. Jump