Shuttleworth Pot
Sunday February 22nd 2026
Members present: Abbie Heathcote, Charlie Hilton, Joseph Boor, Rosie Marshall
Report by Abbie Heathcote
I think the other three will agree there was a look of absolute terror in my eyes when Rosie suggested that I tried rigging, but I’m pretty glad that she talked me into it, because I had a great time and it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be.
We had heard a rumour that the route would already be rigged, it was in fact not - very glad we took our own ropes as trudging back up the fell to retrieve the tacklesacks from the car would not have been fun.
The entrance is a tube, in the middle of a stone rectangle with a metal bar to decend off of - the topo suggests the use of a sling to rig off of the bar, but we found that a simple double fig 8 slipped over it worked perfectly well, and puts you a bit closer to the surface when exiting, very helpful for the shorter caver.
There is a (not-fixed to anything) ladder in the tube, providing some handy footholds. It’s just a short descent into a shallow, murky pool of water. With a bit of wriggling you can fit two people at the bottom, which was great for me as it meant that Rosie could help me rig the Y-hang to make sure it was as well done as possible. The bolts are nicely obvious and close to the bottom of the ladder. I then descended in search of the natural deviation that is shown on the topo - it’s fairly low down and obvious when you see it, there was in-situ tat, so just a crab necessary (though obvs bring a sling with you anyway). I was a little sceptical about using it, it puts you more over the floor of the pitch, but worsens the rope rub above you - in the end Rosie just adjusted the position of the rope on her descent, but I’m not sure that there’s a way to totally avoid rub here.
At the bottom there is a pile of rocks to one side, as shown on the topo and then a steep down-climb and crawl takes you to the start of Diver’s Pitch. Once she joined me at the bottom, Rosie went for a quick explore to check out the climb, before returning to wait for the others at the bottom of the pitch. I then followed the same passage to make sure I was happy with the next bolts and agreed that I would continue with rigging.
It was slow going because rigging for the first time underground is Spooky (and there was an unexpected knot in the second rope, only discovered after I had rigged the start of the next pitch). Rosie very generously pulled the rope up to untie it, I then descended and repacked the rope as efficiently as possible. Bolts 6, 7 and 8 were pretty chill - 9 looks a little intimidating at first, and was a bit of a reach for someone my height, but it was quite a fun climby reach so not too stressful.
Fun Y-Hang, then to a single bolt rebelay. At some point on this descent there was a little ledge, where you get the first glimpse at the pretty formations to come. I recommend pausing on the rope for a look around the enormous space that you’re descending into, it’s a very impressive chamber. At the bottom I did a bit of scrambling down to the sump before considering that I should probably read the description, and headed back up the admittedly quite unstable slope to do so.
Rosie joined me at the bottom, and we did a lot of gazing around at the formations that we could see - just a taste of what was to come! We’d been advised that navigating would be fairly easy (“it’s more of a museum than a cave” said Nuala) as the route made by conservation tape doesn’t really allow you to get lost, but had another read through of the description anyway before Charlie and Joe joined us.
I then led us upwards, and we soon reached a short, flat out crawl which was absolutely surrounded by pretties - devastatingly we didn’t have a camera to take photos. This opens up into a walking passage, it’s a short trip so stopping every 3m to stare at formations is totally justified (right?). If you like formations then get yourself to Shuttleworth Pot, there’s so many beautiful straws, curvy curtains and helictites that sprawl in every direction (they look like candlesnuff fungus but much more shiny and awesome). Look out for two dark stals on the right that look like fangs, hanging above a dark formation that resembles a gothic castle - pretty epic.
We reached what we could have dismissed as the end, but I decided to pursue an upwards climb in search of more cave… dear reader there was a lot more cave. Reading the conservation guide, it is clear that this took us to Dogger Bank Chamber.
The upwards climb brings you to another enormous chamber, you go straight on for a while then have two options: a short foray upwards or a slightly longer route down and to the right. Both are clearly marked by tape and simple to follow. I led us up the higher route, then Charlie and Joe led the way on the lower route. The straws on the lower route were absolutely incredible, you must go see them if you go to Shuttleworth! It gets a bit goopy and muddy after a while, but this is easily outweighed by the reward of seeing alllll the pretties. We reached the end of what we could explore with the time that we had, and then began our return to the bottom of the pitch. I headed up first, followed by Charlie, Joe and Rosie de-rigged.
A lovely ascent (helped by the fact that Rosie had tidied up the rigging behind me). Exiting the tube required me to use the top of the ladder as a foothold, and do a fair amount of bracing to push myself up and over the side. If you’re the first out, I recommend staying close in case anyone needs a hand climbing out. It was lovely and quiet at the top and the view was beautiful, big fan! One by one the others joined me, I took to running down the side of the small ‘cliff’ and climbing back up to keep warm which provided a bit of amusement.
The de-rig was slightly foiled by the rope getting caught around the bottom of the ladder, but Joe pretty awesomely just lifted it out of the tube to un-hook it before lowering the ladder back down - epic stuff.
The walk back to the car was the only downside - long and uphill. But don’t let this dissuade you! Though I can honestly say I’ve never been that happy to see the Panda, and after an efficient change we began the drive back to the NPC. We encountered a lot of sheep, a pheasant(?) and an owl on the way back, concluding a pretty wholesome Sunday on Leck Fell.
