Marked on the survey are four shafts, and the Axbridge Caving Group have discovered and opened up an additional three. One of the shafts is marked as a well shaft. I was reading a 1938 article written about the caves and it made two statements relating to the well shaft. Firstly it stated that at the bottom of the shaft there was an archway and also that the water was tested and it was salty.

When we started explorations the shaft was open upwards, some 18 feet higher than cave floor level, and was capped off. Looking downwards we were able to see down about six feet to a pile of rubble. After digging in the shaft over many evenings the depth was increased to 18 feet and water has just been reached but as yet no sign of an archway. We have not tasted the water to determine if it is salty.

The salty water got me thinking; what would be the purpose of having a well that produced salty water – none! What would be the other use – yes yet another means of getting rid of the sewage. I am assuming that the bottom of the shaft would have been linked with the harbour thus the reason for the salty water. The sewage would have been dumped into the shaft on the low tide and take out by the high tide. This would have worked perfectly well until 1809. For in this year they opened the New Cut. Between the years 1804 and 1809 1000 navies dug the two-mile long new channel for the River Avon thus creating the 70 acres of Floating Harbour and hence no tide. Unfortunately this engineering exercise would have put pay to the sewage dumping scheme and the well shaft became forgotten, although in 1868 a dog did fall down this well and he was rescued the next day.

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