Hagg Gill Pot

After breakfast at the campsite, we headed for Deepdale Bridge to find Hagg Gill Pot. On the way we stopped at Raisgill Farm as in the "Selected Caves" book but they knew nothing about it. Further up the road we saw some kids in caving gear and as we got nearer recognised Dave Elliot as the instructor in charge so we stopped and asked where to ask permission. Karen introduced herself (as BCA Training Administrator) and he said it should be Hagg Gill Farm, further up the road. We stopped further up and told Pete about this and he agreed to go and seek permission while we found a place to park. We found space next to Deepdale Bridge and when Pete arrived he said he couldn't find Hagg Gill Farm and we had done our best to get permission so we'd go anyway.
We got changed and walk about 250 metres up the road to Hagg Gill. Mick wanted to leave by 3:00pm so he walked with us to the entrance and afterwards went of a short walk. We slid the lid across and saw a scaffolding-lined shaft about 5 metres deep with a narrow hole continuing down the 15 metre pitch.
Pete tied on the rope and abseiled down. He re-belayed the rope to a scaffold cross-piece and headed down the remainder of the pitch. Karen followed and as she was getting onto the rebelay, I clambered down the scaffolding. Once Karen was at the bottom, I attached my descender to the rope and tried to follow but couldn't get through the short narrow bit. I shouted down for Pete and Karen to go on while I had another go. You could see that after a couple of feet it opened out but I just couldn't get through. I tried with my bobbin on my short cows-tail but it was still tight. I dangled with my jammers on thinking maybe I could down-prusik, but it was too tight.
I clambered back up and walked back to the car and got changed. In the meantime a car had parked in the middle of the track next to the bridge - but it was a family who were playing about in the river so they could have moved the car if needed. I laid my caving gear in the sun to dry and sat by the water and after a short time Mick arrived back from his walk and after he had given me a coffee, he said good-by and headed off.
I waited for a while then got in the car out of the cold wind and waited until Karen arrived. Pete had brough extra ropes, planning to have a look at Langstroth Pot, which was in the locality, but he couldn't find it and he arrived soon afterwards. Once Karen had got changed, we headed back to the campsite as Pete was getting changed and started to pack up and get the tent down. Pete arrived soon afterwards and we had a quick coffee and headed home.