Penyghent Pot was discovered in late 1949, by the N.P.C. The cave with its notorious entrance filled for most of the part by icy water, the thirteen wet pitches and a total depth of some five hundred feet was soon to hit the headlines. The pot had already been the scene of a rescue in May 1951, which resulted in the death of John William's one of seven members of the B.S.A. who descended the cave on May 18th at eleven a.m.
Three weeks later a group of cavers from Craven entered the cave led by the Brindle brothers. Among the others in the party was Roy Swindlehurst, a member of the newly formed, infant Burnley Caving Club. The party 'bottomed' the cave with no undue worries, and was beginning to make the return journey. The ninth pitch was reached in a tight rift passage, when one of the group, J.P. Frankland fell backwards while climbing the ladder. Franklands' fall landed him in a deep pool, where a flake of rock under the water knocked him unconscious. The party did what they could to make him comfortable, Dennis and Norman Brindle staying with the injured man, while Roy Swindlehurst and J. Lovett made haste out of the cave for assistance.
Roy raced down to Brackenbottom where he borrowed a bicycle, and rode the last mile to Horton-in-Ribblesdale to raise the alarm. Frankland meanwhile had regained consciousness, but was in severe pain from bruising of the ribs making breathing difficult. After what must have seemed days, the first of the rescue parties descended the cave to begin what even today is classed as one of the most difficult rescues every undertaken by the C.R.O. It was to be thirty-six hours before John Frankland was eventually raised to the surface, a task undertaken by no less than one hundred cavers from various parts of the country. Following an appeal by the B.B.C. five Burnley Caving Club members were quick to answer, Gerald Kelly, Raymond Haffner, A. Schofield, Noel Coupe and E. Burns of Keighley.
The scale of the rescue is perhaps summed up in the fact that on arrival at the pothole Burnley team were assigned to the number twelve rescue party. They entered the pot at two thirty p.m., and with the aid of rubber inner tubes, brute force, rope and determination dragged Frankland the last four hundred yards to the surface. The tragedy of John Williams was fresh in the mind of every caver that day, determination and the sheer bulk of cavers ensured the rescue was not a repetition of the fatality of the previous three weeks.
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