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OFFICEClapham · since 2019

Three people, one long table.

BACKSIGHT is a small drawing office on Station Road in Clapham, at the foot of the path that runs up past Ingleborough Cave to Gaping Gill. We draw cave surveys for clubs and expeditions, go underground to survey with them, and teach.

S.01What it costs

Prices

Prices include VAT. Club rates are already applied; tell us if you are a student expedition.

  1. 01

    Drawing up

    Your data reduced, closed and drawn as plan, elevation and sections. PDF, SVG and the Survex file.

    £24 per 100 m surveyed · min. £120

  2. 02

    Data check

    Just the numbers: reduce the centreline, close every loop and write up what looks wrong.

    £40 per cave

  3. 03

    Survey with you

    One of us comes underground with your team, with instruments, and does the sketching.

    £180 per day + travel

  4. 04

    Survey weekend

    Saturday underground on a short loop near Clapham, Sunday at the table reducing and drawing what you shot. Six places.

    £95 per person

S.02How to send

Send your data

  1. 01Email us the cave, how much was surveyed and your deadline.
  2. 02Attach what you have: Survex (.svx), Therion (.th), TopoDroid or PocketTopo exports, or scans of the notebook pages.
  3. 03We reply within a week with a price and a date. Most sheets take two to four weeks.
Fell Beck falling into the open shaft of Gaping Gill on Ingleborough
Gaping Gill, a walk up the hill from the office. Photo: Paul Buckingham, CC BY-SA 2.0

S.03Where we are

Under Ingleborough

Clapham sits on the south side of Ingleborough, 723 m, one of the Yorkshire Three Peaks. From the village, the path follows Clapham Beck past Ingleborough Cave, up Trow Gill to Gaping Gill: a 98 m shaft that Fell Beck falls straight into, with a main chamber about the volume of York Minster.

Twice a year, at the May and August bank holidays, the Bradford and Craven pothole clubs rig a winch and lower visitors down the shaft. Come and see us on the way.

Open
Tuesday to Saturday, 9:00 to 17:00
Train
Clapham station, 2 km
Grid
54.119 N, 2.392 W

S.04Credits and sources

Credits

This site

BACKSIGHT, its people, prices and commissions are fictional. Every cave drawing on the site is generated by its own survey engine from simulated readings; none shows a real cave.

Facts

Wikipedia (CC BY-SA): Cave survey, Gaping Gill, Édouard-Alfred Martel, Ingleborough, BCRA. BCRA grade tables summarised; see the originals and their notes.

Images

Grotte Sainte-Reine plan, Martel, Les Abîmes 1894, public domain · Cave surveying instruments, Cloud200, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gaping Gill, Paul Buckingham, CC BY-SA 2.0 · all via Wikimedia Commons, shown as duotones.

Type

Jost (Indestructible Type, OFL) and Inconsolata (Raph Levien, OFL), self-hosted.