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CAVING
The world’s first cave dive
NINETY years ago, at 40 minutes past midnight on July 14th, 1935, a bunch of intrepid explorers made history at Wookey Hole when the world’s first proper cave dive, using breathing apparatus, took place. That first dive began in Chamber Three, which was then the end of both the show cave With MARTIN and the known cave. Prior to the underground GASS dive, training was held in the Mineries Pool at Priddy. Graham Balcombe, the person who made this historic dive, surfaced in chamber four and, in his words, “made a limited inspection of the chamber above water”. Although the flooded passage, known as a sump, was only a few metres long, this was an historic event. The total dive time was 20 minutes. Even more amazing for the time was the second dive, made at 0220 hrs by Penelope “Mossy” Powell. She was a petite 30-year-old divorced woman with two young children and a guide at Wookey Hole Caves and shop. A third dive, by Frank Frost, a Wessex Cave Club member, took place at 0315 hrs. What is remarkable is that the divers all wore “standard dive dress”, which comprised a classic brass “dome” helmet, heavy leadweighted boots (8kg) and a canvas dry suit. The total weighed a hefty 180 pounds (80kg), and progress was made by walking along the bottom, which stirred up the thick mud and silt covering the floor and rapidly turned the visibility to zero. Air was supplied through a long rubber hose, which was attached to a hand-operated pump situated in Chamber Three. The dive timings reveal that a lot of preparation had to be made, with the equipment being carefully checked and rechecked between dives. All the diving equipment was loaned to them, along with a diving instructor, by Siebe, Gorman & Co. Ltd, who insisted that all divers provide a medical certificate to prove that they were fit to partake. Rumour at the time had it that one member had two medical certificates, one to prove he was fit to dive, the other to prove him too ill to work! Diving continued throughout the summer and the divers eventually reached Chamber Seven. Balcombe and Powell published the results in “The Log of the Wookey Hole Divers”, which appeared in 1936. Only 175 copies were printed at 7/6d each (37.5p). Original copies of the book currently sell for hundreds of pounds, although a reprint by the Cave Diving Group is available. Mossy Powell must have been very independently minded and clearly took no nonsense from the other divers, who were all men. She mentions in the book, “The wife problem is beginning to look very bleak indeed, but by hitting on the magnificent The MCRA is a registered charity, a idea of bringing them non-profit making organisation along too, and decanting staffed entirely by volunteers them at a reasonable
Mossy Powell and Graham Balcombe
distance from operations, two more members of the gang were able to put in an appearance just about tea time and so get in their usual Sunday dips.” On the August 17th, 1935, the BBC produced the very first live broadcast from within a cave, and Wookey Hole’s famous acoustics were successfully highlighted by a male voice choir who sang out as the divers disappeared into the dark depths! The broadcast generated a great deal of interest at the time, especially as one of the divers was a young female. The programme went out at 10.30pm and included a telephone link to the divers. Herbert Balch (known as the father of Mendip Caving and the person who founded Wells & Mendip Museum) was also interviewed about the cave and the archaeological finds that had been made there. Diving at Wookey finished at the end of August 1935, and although a return had been planned for the following year, the divers were instead drawn towards Wookey’s main feeder cave at Swildon’s Hole at Priddy, which terminated in a low flooded pool, known as Sump One. This was successfully passed in 1936 by Jack Sheppard and Balcombe and in the same year Balcombe passed Sump Two, discovering a considerable amount of new cave in the process. At Easter 1946, Balcombe formed the Cave Diving Group, the world’s oldest technical diving group. He returned to Wookey Hole that same year and did his last dive there 11 years later. Mossy never returned. She remarried in 1936 and had three more children before sadly passing away in 1965 at the age of 60. In 2024, the prestigious International “Women Divers Hall of Fame” voted to honour Mossy posthumously. The citation was for the first woman cave diver and co-author of the first cave diving book. And what of Wookey Hole today? Caving and cave diving have come a long way since those first intrepid dives, and there have been several notable advances in the intervening 90 years. The current end, which was reached in 2005, lies deep below Chamber 25, where a team using specially manufactured closed-circuit rebreathing apparatus reached the formidable depth below water of 90 metres, a new British cave diving depth record.
Martin is chair of both Mendip Cave Rescue and the Cave Diving Group of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
MENDIP TIMES • SEPTEMBER 2025 • PAGE 61