Expeditions

At WMCEG, we have a rich history of exploring caves in the West Midlands (very few!) and beyond – Mendips, South Wales, Derbyshire, North Yorks. Our caving adventures usually took place over the weekends, where we would embark on journeys to the main UK caving areas. Most of the time, these trips lasted for two days, but on bank holidays, we would extend it to possibly three or even four days of exploration.

Although it was primarily caves that we visited, that included uther underground exploration such as mines including Mid & North Wales and of course many of the Derbyshire caves were in part historic mines, mostly for Lead dating back to at least Roman times. I’m now a member of PDMHS, I created and maintain the websites of both PDMHS and our museum currently in Matlock Bath, well worth a visit.  Visitors can go underground in our small Lead Mine just across the road.  The museum was rated the best tourist attraction in the area by TripAdvisor in 2023.  It is preparing to move to larger pemises in a new-build to be located in the National Stone Centre as a joint project with the NSC and  the IoQ (Institute of Quarrying) with substantial financial support from NSC, IoQ and the National Lottery.

During my time with WMCEG, we also organized a few longer expeditions. We started with a week-long trip to N. Yorkshire and went on to have two memorable journeys to County Clare. There may have been more expeditions to places like County Fermanagh and Belgium, but unfortunately, the records are lost. We would greatly appreciate it if anyone could share their memories, notes, or photos from those trips. If you happen to have any, please get in touch. We would love to hear from our fellow cave enthusiasts and uncover more about our past expeditions. And if you’re an old-hand with stories to tell or photos to share, we eagerly await your contributions!

Help needed – does anyone have an photos, details, memories of the other expeditions.  I was on a couple of the N Yorks weeks but I’d left WMCEG by the time of the Belgium trip(s?).