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Score of The Tankard Hole Song
The Wessex Cave Club were the diggers and so this song probably eminated from the same club. A shakehole is a surface depression caused by an underground collapse and cave systems can often be found by digging at the bottom or around the sides of such a surface feature. Weegees are anyone who are not cavers. 'Bang' is caving slang for explosives. Tratmans Temple is a chamber in Swildons Hole while Devils Elbow is a passage in GB Cavern. Mortons Pot is a pitch in Eastwater Cavern where stemples are metal rungs which assist climbers. St. Cuthberts is a nearby cave with a tight entrance rift where queues form. The dip is the angle of beds of limestone down which cave systems often follow.

In Fifty Four a dig was started by some bods from the other club,
In a shakehole by the roadside not so far from the Hunters Pub,
With occasional draughts of cider the diggers soon had piled a heap,
To the envy of the weegees and the puzzlement of the sheep.

CHORUS:
Ain't a gonna dig this cave no longer, ain't a gonna dig this cave no more,
With it's stalagmites from the ceiling and it's stalagmites from the floor,
Ain't a gonna push this squeeze no longer, ain't a gonna bang this choke no more,
For our Tankards Hole is going and its going to beat them all

Well the entrance rift was narrow, so there wasn't much need to shore,
But further down it's ample, twenty feet by sixty four,
It was tedious to climb the pitches, with a rift and a gulf to jump,
So we've got an elevator from the first pitch to the sump.

CHORUS:

(the final verse tempo is speeded up and sung loudly)

You can keep your Tratmans Temple and your Devil's Elbow too,
And your Mortons Pot with stemples and your Cutchberts entrance queue,
For our Tankards hole is going, going steadily down the dip,
Taking Swildons as a feeder and St. Cuthberts as a drip.

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