Short Drop Cave - Gavel Pot System

The first recorded exploration of the Gavel Pot – Short Drop system was in 1885, when William Ecroyd, Geoffrey and Cuthbert Hastings descended one of the entrances in the Gavel Pot shakehole, and explored Short Drop Cave for a considerable distance upstream, using a ladder constructed out of iron piping and rope to scale the 5 m high waterfall. They called the cave "Low Dowk Cave", seemingly under the impression it was Low Douk Cave near Marble Steps Pot. It was called "Gavel-pot" in 1842 by Jonathan Otley, and in 1881 Balderstone called it "Gavel or Navel Pot". Short Drop cave was explored through to Gavel Pot by a Yorkshire Ramblers' Club party in 1898. The University of Leeds…

The main entrance into Short Cave is at the end of a shallow valley where a small hole drops into a stream passage. Upstream leads to a canal passage that becomes too tight, and an excavated squeeze on the right, before the end, leads to the Coal Hole entrance. Downstream, 100 m of mainly low passage leads to an oxbow with a larger passage arriving from Rift Entrance. A long awkward inlet passage called Masochist Passage can be followed to the northeast for some 300 m almost up to the Rumbling Hole stream sinks, and an old high level route named Ancient Highway loops back to the main route. Downstream continues as a canyon passage that steadily enlarges, passing an inlet passage on the…