228 REPORT ON THE DENEHOLE EXPLORATION
shafts had been filled up within their recollection.3 And the shaft in
question, being close to a somewhat ill-marked footpath may, if open
in the earlier years of the present century, have proved itself much
more dangerous to man and beast than shafts either near a well-
defined road like Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, or at some little distance from
roads and footpaths, like No. 5.
The tunnels driven from No. 3, our base of operations, have
enabled us to connect together fourteen different deneholes in-
Fig. 2.—Denehole ("No. 1") in Hangman's Wood. Scale, 1 in. = 40 ft.
(The ground-plan is purely conjectural, the fall of the roof preventing a
survey being made; in all probability there were originally other chambers.)
cluding that from which we started. The visitor to No. 3 now finds
three different courses before him (see Ground-plan on Plate iv.).
He may leave it by the southerly tunnel which admits to the open-
shafted Nos. 2 and 4; by the easterly tunnel which allows entrance
to the closed pits 7, 8, 12 and part of 13; or by the northerly tunnel
which gives admission into the closed pits Nos. 9, 10, 11 and parts
of 6, 14 and 15, also into the open-shafted No. 5. The only other
open-shafted pit at present existing in Hangman's Wood (No. 1,
2 It should be noted, however, that we found no evidence of such artificial filling in having
been employed to close any of the pits to which we gained access—the cone of earth which had
accumulated in each case appeared to have been the result of slow and natural denudation
from the sides of the shaft, etc., during the lapse of many years. See post.—Ed.