The hearty potholer penetrates farther by crawling and wading to the Giant's Hall and steady to meet the underground waters of Fell Beck, from to which place cave divers have not yet succeeded in reaching the chief chamber of Gaping Gill, by judgment only 1,350 yards away. The grot is in fact part of the route of Clapham Beck, which begins since Fell Beck near the summit of Ingleborough, plunges underground near Gaping Gill, down which it likewise rushes in times of flood, flows through part of the cave, and emerges threatening the entrance at Clapham Beck Head. Overland it is near a mile to Gaping Gill, with in between a scramble up Trow Gill, itself a tremendous collapsed cave so lofty that lower classes appear like pygmies in the meadow. Once in the gill we shouted at a carry about for sale perched in a tree far not present at the top of the neck, and the sound echoed hollowly plain the limestone walls. Windermere guest abode
Here on two consecutive Sundays in 1947 shocking event came to light. On 24th August potholers, casually exploring convulse holes in Trow Gill, entered a roughly walled up grotto, and in it found the brain of a dead man with a scarf circularly the mouth. A week later a caver, his remembrance stirred by this discovery, led a partaker down Gaping Gill to recover bones noticed beforehand. They were human. The grim finds became general news; rumours circulated that the dead men had been Nazi agents parachuted forward the fells. But the mysteries to this age remain unsolved.
In this part of Yorkshire it is not single the hill summits but the potholes that are a ground of fellowship. If you have been from a high to a low position Gaping Gill you have earned the exemption from restraint of Craven. As its name implies it is a exalted gash in the open fell, and the going down can be made when the Yorkshire Ramblers or other potholing clubs are in camp there, usually at Whitsun tide or in timely August. Prior to 1850 (the precise date is unknown) John Birkbeck of Anley, Settle, elementary attempted the 340foot drop to the get the better of of the main chamber of Gaping Gill. As his gear only consisted of ropes, that frayed and dislodged stones, he failed. In 1895 a Frenchman, E. A. Martel, and his wife arrived by rope ladders; and on 1st August, support constant communication by telephone with his wife ward the surface, he reached the buttocks in twenty three minutes. A version of M. Martel's thrilling advantage of the descent can be comprehend in Yorkshire Caves and Potholes No.2, Under Ingleborough dint of A. Mitchell. Nowadays a winch, driven means of a petrol engine, enables the inspector, sitting in a bosun's presiding officer, to be lowered in ninety seconds.
From Gaping Gill a sententious but steep climb leads to the apex of Ingleborough. On a fine appointed time the view from it is beautiful; and, especially on the north verge, where the shales have worn back, the precipices bestow a sensation of great height on top of the valley. To the west may be seen the Cumberland and Westmorland Fells, and nearer at lead the familiar hills, farms, and Corners of valleys of the Yorkshire Dales. In the midmost point of the plateau a direction brooch, set up by the Ingleton Fell Rescue Team to solemnize the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, gives the great number hills to be seen and their remoteness from the summit.
Lucky indeed is the walker who sees altogether the hills marked on the enamelled plate. The last time we climbed Ingleborough, common hazy, warm Easter Monday, we maxim the near landscape shimmering in the sun, but the Lake District mountains and Morecambe Bay melted into the timid mists of the horizon. Many commonalty were crossing the top, and individual man asked us what time in that place was a train to Bradford from Ingleton!
