Brewery Shaft

Saturday March 7th 2026

Members present: Abbie Heathcote,  Ben Wellington,  Flynn Robertson,  Tyler Hudson,  Will Barlow

Catchy opening line here.

The weekend began the way all the best weekends do - up at 7:30 for a 9am materials/mechanics lab - truly the best way to build anticipation. Once I had fled the excitement of the innovation centre I was free to prepare for the Shaft. I walked home with a brief cameo from that funny Alfred guy and packed in time for Sqwill's scheduled 12:53 arrival. I thought all about how I had probably locked my door while we drove to the store, picking up Ben on the way over. All we still needed to pack was personal gear - oversuit, undersuit, the other bits, and the absolute crustiest, oldest rack I could find. (it's better than a simple!) I also took a spare D-Ring maillon in case my spooky autolocker got to be too scary for the Shaft. We picked up a rack for Abbie and drove over to Lidl for the food shop, managing to only miss one thing on the shopping list, which is like a 95% success rate (which is a first so really not that bad actually). During the shop Sqwill received the unfortunate news that the 600m of rope had just been delivered and had to be picked up, from East, there and then. That was probably the second worst possible timing for that delivery but we piled the shopping onto Ben and drove over to pick up Abbie before continuing over to the post room. The rope was divided into 3 200m reels, which is perfect given the size of our group (by this point Ben was one with the bags, never to be released, so our group had been shaved down to 3.) Lifting with our legs, we hauled the reels across to the car and squeezed in rather cosily as Sqwill drove us carefully back to jam the rope into the Tacklemaster's store, a problem for future him. Current him continued driving us and we picked up Viki, rather increasing the cosiness level - we had a pleasant drive up to Nenthead mines, with Sqwill pointing out the Rampgill entrance upon arrival. We unpacked and wandered over to the Hole.

The Hole is contained within a shed. The door scrapes on the concrete floor, producing an impossibly hollow echo as it reveals a small changing-room with some posters about the Hole on the walls and another door on the opposite side. Viki figured out the lights and we continued up the ramp to the room that actually contained the Hole. The second door was pushed open, announced by the mechanical whir of the pulley-system. We entered a dark L-shaped balcony overlooking the Hole.
Your attention is led down the Shaft by the lights dotting one side, gradually getting further apart as they descend into the depths. Opposite, rusted steel pipes sag on their supports before suddenly darting across to the Rampgill entrance after about 20 metres. The concrete walls of the Shaft are stained with decades of grime. The lights finally surrender to the crushing darkness only about halfway down. It's very quiet.
Viki works their eclectrical magic on the control box and we play with the simulated stone drop (it only works with the lights turned off!). It takes a concerning amount of time to stop falling but the sound confirms there probably is a bottom and Sqwill begins to rig, tying off to the hopefully-load-bearing beam in the ceiling and continuing across the grating to the trapdoor leaving a traverse line starting next to the gate. Some very spooky rigging commences with Sqwill triple checking everything a few times before rather gingerly committing to sitting down on his rack. He doesn't die, which is pretty good, and starts his descent to some excellent girlypop.
Sqwill literally inches down the shaft, his progress marked by his increasingly dim headtorch. He seemingly reaches the bottom and bounces straight back up in an impressively quick time, continuing his not-dying streak and smoothly exiting the trapdoor using the many slings he'd rigged around the hatch as footholds (they were a very good idea.)
Ben and I then wandered over to the Rampgill level to find it rather unfortunately damp. We headed back to grab wellies and I led into the Rampgill level to find a pretty cool and interesting hole in my right welly, which would be fine had I bothered to put wetsocks on. I soldiered on through the chill to watch Abbie ascend and Ben and I took some excellent selfies as we looked down the Hole.
We all wandered back to the hut to meet the other car, them having arrived in the middle of the shaft-bouncing. We dinnered successfully and the new arrivals made like a banana and split (inspect the Hole) while Charlie, Ben, Viki and I stay in the lovely warm hut.

After the evening's bouncing the cheese board commences. The absolute genius that is Harvey brought a baked camembert and it was absolutely gorgeous. It was huge so we didn't even finish all of it so we could have microwaved camembert the following evening. (with golden syrup, of course.) It was truly a perfect evening to cap off our first visit to the Hole.


The following morning, I woke up shockingly well rested for a cave-hut sleep. I was gently awoken by the excellent news of a completed breakfast and filled myself up with a cave-breakfast-sandwich as preparation for the events of the day. The plan eventually decided upon was to do it in 2 groups to prevent anyone shivering for too long at the bottom - Roe, Joe, Viki, Charlie and Harvey were going first, followed by Flynn, Ben, Abbie, Sqwill and me. While the first group descended, Flynn and I had an explore of the rampgill level beyond the bit that connects to the Shaft, while Sqwill took (rather good) photos of descending cavers. If you do manage to drag yourself away from the Shaft it's actually a really fun little bimble - the walls ooze black blood and crystals flake away from the ceiling. The walls sparkle and there are some excellently wobbly snotsicles that are - so I'm told - alive. If you continue going you get to a massive pile of ceiling-rubble which is a great sign that you should probably turn back.
I made it back to the top of the Hole as the other group started to ascend. At this point, I had really started to feel the gravity of the Shaft before me. I then watched as the second to ascend - who shall remain unnamed - made it to the top. To celebrate, he dropped his camera straight back down the Shaft. The way he chose to convey this information to us was via a blood-curdling scream which made me think he'd fucking died and did very little to calm my nerves. Eventually the other group all made it up and thusly came the hour of reckoning - by this point, the second ascender's continued quivering and the Hole's general presence had instilled rather a bit of abject terror into my heart so the thought of walking over the grating and lowering myself into the Hole was becoming increasingly unappealing. Flynn seemed to have a lot of fun as he descended but I wasn't too focussed on that as I was busy shitting absolute bricks on the balcony and getting Sqwill to check my harness multiple times. I swapped my rack out for one a little less crusty and quadruple checked everything before realising that I actually needed to piss, so I went outside and relieved myself in full view of like 3 houses and 1 horse (the other one was facing the other way) which did a surprising amount of good so when Ben had descended I was like totally fine and barely even felt a little bit of fear for my life, with the last bit of terror soundly quelled by Taylor Swift and other assorted girlypop. I pulled myself over the grating and sat very carefully on the edge of the trapdoor, steeling my nerves as I rigged my rack using the reverse jammer technique to my advantage. I stalled a bit further by continuing to not do it before giving in and stepping into a sling as I lowered myself into the Hole.
As you lower yourself, there's this moment where you've gone slightly beyond where you could catch yourself if you fell while still being slightly above being caught by your harness. This moment is roughly where the brown-trouser factor peaks. As soon as you're sat in your harness, however, it's just like the sports hall - the most terrifying lock removal of all time precedes creeping down the Shaft as slowly as you can so as not to damage the rope. I stopped at the balcony for a photo, struggling to angle myself properly, and continued down the Shaft, using my chin to gauge the heat of the rack as I went. Sqwill had described the shaft as raining and it really was, I got absolutely drenched in sweet lead-water on the way down but the pretties kept me entertained as I tried not to feed my rack too much. (Apparently, the lowest bar can ping off if you feed it too quickly. I learnt this little titbit right before I was meant to descend. Better late than never?).
About ten minutes after my entry, I finally touched down and greeted Ben and Flynn before climbing down the ladder and bellowing 'ROPE FREE' up the Shaft behind me. I waited for the next two by posing for Flynn and having a look at the first room. The debris pile has presumably covered the original way around so you have to clamber under some pipes to continue - it feels as if, in the absence of people, the machinery started to grow like weeds. It's a very alien space.
Once Abbie and Sqwill had made it down we could continue on past the first room. Some very careful steps led us over to the engine room, which somehow still kept the faint scent of oil and old machinery - some of the pistons even still had grease on them! Usually anything this well-preserved is kept at least a few feet away from the general public so to be this close was a fantastic experience. It's as though aside from the obvious rust the room is just waiting to start up again. There's also a horrifyingly bent piston on the table, indicating the power of the devices in the room.
We continued on through the almost-crawl out of the engine room. It would have been far easier as a crawl but it's got about a foot of, once again, probably-lead-filled water which made the thought of entering it any further somewhat unappealing. We turned left to find all our effort was for nothing as the water immediately gets a fair bit deeper anyway. Sqwill and Abbie sauntered on ahead getting the water nice and muddied for the rest of us who spent a lot more time trying to find good footing. At the end was the scary bad air sign and we stopped for pictures - if you look very carefully, there's some stalactites here that are thin enough to sway gently in the light breeze. I then was able to lead the group back to the main chamber, following onwards to the waterwheel (trying my hardest not to get lost on the way.)
The waterwheel is really cool. It's absolutely huge and the chamber it's in was jet black with muddy yellow water and a bunch of large rusty spikes next to it. It's an A-grade snack spot while watching Ben and Abbie torture themselves by going right to the sump. Flynn terrified us all with a fun demonstration of how soft the ceiling was and we wandered back to the engine room so we could take a final group picture before starting the ascent. Flynn ascended first and I had the radical idea that I should probably go before Ben as I was starting to need another piss so upon Flynn's call of 'rope free' I scrambled up the pile and took the requisite 13 steps to fully stretch out the rope before starting the ascent up the Shaft.
The ascent is actually really chill - 10-15 steps, have a break, repeat! There's a lot more time to ruminate on the ascent and I spent a while looking at the awesome view above me. I was at the first light much faster than I expected and stopped for a celebratory drink, making absolutely certain that I definitely was holding my bottle very tightly. The rest of the ascent was equally pleasant although increasingly slow, with lots of pretties along the way and nice conversation to be had with the Flynn and Roe above me.
The top of the pitch is super fun to get out of. You get to the top, stop the timer (17:33, not great not terrible) and look up to see the trapdoor about a foot above your head - not the most convenient of locations for an exit, but the slings are indispensable and you only have to tilt back at a slightly disconcerting angle to get your feet into them. Yanking yourself out is super fun and then you can be out of Brewery Shaft, safe and never to do it again, ever!

...

...

The following day, I was the first down the Shaft in the morning as I needed to be in the first car out. Despite the prior trip's slight spookiness, today's was far chiller - I was a bit bolder with the speed during the descent and the prussiking hadn't changed much, it was about what I had done the day before (but probably a bit slower.) I went down in my regular clothes and only asked Sqwill to check my harness once before dropping down and bouncing straight back up. Being down alone is rather eerie but I was brave and fully derigged my rack instead of cheating and midroping at the bottom (like SOME people did.)


In conclusion - they call it a cheeseboard, but I'll never get bored of cheese.