SCMC Publications & ResearchIn addition to underground exploration and training, members carry-out historical research, the results of which the Club publishes in various formats.
The Club produces a quarterly publication called "Below!" which contains details of recent club trips, articles of historical interest, mining & caving history and other news items involving underground features. Old issues are available online.
Small items of historical interest from old newspapers, magazines and journals which members have come across, and which we feel might be of interest are reproduced on this website in our "What the Papers Said" section. Hopefully these might help someone else with their research.
Selected news reports have been saved (linked to the News page) and more reports of Club members research will appear on the website soon as the 'Reports' section. Some of these reports will have appeared in old editions of Below! or a Journal.
The detailed results of Members research on a particular mine site or topic is occasionally published by the Club in the form of an "Account".
Accounts can range from detailed surveys and histories of particular sites, to write-ups on Club explorations, and the results of historical research into, for example, mining accidents in Shropshire.
Rather than lose material through the lack of publication, it was felt that small research topics should be released to a wider audience - if only to prevent the duplication of work by others, these items of historical interest which were considered too long for "Below!" and too short to be a Club "Account" are printed in the Club Journal.
Advances in desktop publishing and electronic techniques have meant that many items that once would have only been printed in a Club Journal can now appear in "Below!". As a result there has been a 16 year gap between Journal 9 and Journal 10 - which has been produced this year to mark our 60th Anniversary.
Some items from the journals have been reproduced on this web site (in the Labyrinth or Armchair cavers section).
In the past few decades mining in Britain has undergone considerable changes. Modern "state-of-the-art" mines have often closed within a few years of opening, and some have even been abandoned before they were finished!
Old abandoned mines have become the focus of attention for planners and developers and hundreds of sites have been filled in, demolished and made "safe".
Working in conjunction with I.A.Recordings an attempt has been made to record something of Britain's underground heritage, before it is too late.
As a result of this collaboration a number of video recordings (available on DVD) have been made of Club visits, explorations and activities at home and abroad.
Below!
