Darrens Caving Journal: Monkton Farleigh Quarry (Brown's Folly Mine).

When: 4 Sept 2013 19.30 – 21.15 pm.
Where: Monkton Farleigh Quarry (Brown's Folly Mine).
Who: Darren T, Rich T.

Last minute change of plan as we were supposed to do a photo trip to Hilliers cave to find the Red Room and the infamous Red Stall.
Due to lack of interest from our club members we decided to go to Browns Quarry and have a look at the good work Mr Brian C has been doing to tidy the place up. Its been nearly a year since we were last there as we used this place to get cave fit again after my eight month layoff with a broken foot.
This is the underground Quarry that first got us interested in underground exploration. We will never tire of exploring it as its got over 20 km of passage ways and part of it was used by the MOD to store Ammunition and Explosive Shells during the Second World War. The quarry was known as CAD 3 (Central Ammunition Depot No 3). It was split up into storage districts. Unfortunately you can no longer access most of these parts as they belong to a secure storage company. However every now and then some parts do become available for exploration, but that's another story perhaps not for today!
The old parts are easy to access and so it was to these we went. We parked and got kitted up and walked to the entrance hole, as always its a bit muddy. We decided to follow the main tourist route we wanted to see the work that has been done. The walls etc are now probably in the condition they were when the MOD took it over and evicted the Quarrymen in the 30s, graffiti free apart from the scribbling's laid down by the Quarrymen over the last 150 years or so.
We continued down Longs Passage into Clapham Junction then down Clapham Passage into Prop Chamber. Railway Passage takes you to the Square Well and the Ferret Cage, said to be used to keep ferrets in by a Quarryman as his wife wouldn't have them at home.
We returned to Clapham Junction and took some pictures. Then we went down Clapham Passage the other way and had a look at the three troughs but they were empty of water due to the hot summer. After a while sitting and chatting we made our way out. At the end of a passage we noticed a hole that we had not seen before, I crawled through and followed a passage for some distance not sure where this led as we were close to the old storage districts. I returned and vowed to come back with my survey as this had been left at home as we had not planed to come here tonight.