Geoff Workman's record-breaking Stump Cross stay: 60 years on
In 1963, Geoff Workman broke the world record for time spent in total isolation underground here at Stump Cross Caverns. Learn his amazing story here.
Guinness World Records is full of cave-related bests – from the world's largest manmade cave to its largest cave opening.
(That's 816 Nuclear Plant in southwestern China and Cathedral Caverns in Alabama, USA, since you ask.)
Here at Stump Cross Caverns in North Yorkshire, England, we're delighted to have our own record-breaking connection.
Yes. In 1963, local caver Geoff Workman broke the record for time spent underground in total isolation. His subterranean stopover lasted a staggering 105 days – smashing the previous record of 40 days.
He's one of several individuals who are key parts of Stump Cross lore – another being Christopher Long, the Cambridge medical student who explored the caves back in the early 1920s.
Sixty years on, we look back at Geoff Workman's achievement – and the long shadow it's cast.
One-hundred-and-five days underground
You might be asking, "Why did he do it?"
The question is actually more complex than it might appear.
Workman said that he wanted to learn more about how isolation affected the mind and body. He made himself a human guinea pig, with the caves as his controlled environment.
He also wanted to survey and photograph the caves. These days, you can take comprehensive 3D photos of caverns – but back then it was more piecemeal. Cavers and scientists would add to their knowledge piece by piece, measurement by measurement, photo by photo.
But the Pathé
newsreel from the time tells a different story. It said that Workman "wanted to prove that if we need to head into caves in the event of a nuclear war, all we need to do is wrap up warm and take enough food".
This was at the height of the Cold War and in the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, so it's not impossible that Workman wanted to reassure the public in some way. In any case, as a lifelong cave-lover, he had a unique perspective to offer.
Workman was meant to be down in the caverns for only ("only") 100 days – but he lost track of time, and ended up overshooting his own target.
He went down into the cave with camping gear, food and the scientific equipment he needed to carry out his studies.
He was there from June to September, during which time both the Profumo scandal and the Great Train Robbery gripped the British nation.
We're going to take a wild guess and say that most of our readers wouldn't want to spend 105 minutes alone in a cave, let alone 105 days. But Workman was a unique character. He says that he enjoyed his time in the caves and that he never got bored or lonely.
How would you celebrate 105 days underground? A mad cackle? A makeshift shower? Not Geoff.
Instead, he treated himself to a meal of mashed potato, mushroom soup and strawberry jelly. As a patriot and ardent speleologist, he also toasted Queen, Country and his cave brothers – all the potholers and scientists who shared his passion.
Even without his record-breaking sojourn, there was no doubting Geoff's love of caves. He once described its origins like this:
"I suppose the first time I did it would have been caves at the beach on holiday… It is the thought of being the first person ever to have found a place. It is the joy of discovery."
It was that "joy of discovery" that drove him to continue exploring caverns across the UK throughout his later life.
Geoff's legacy
Geoff reentered the public eye in 2010 when 33 Chilean miners were trapped in the San José Mine. Geoff became a go-to interviewee as the world's press asked him for survival tips.
2013 saw the fiftieth anniversary of Geoff's descent. At 84, he was still potholing twice a week. To celebrate the anniversary, he and fellow members of the Craven Potholing Club recreated his emergence from Stump Cross Caverns.
Geoff passed away in 2020 – but his spirit of adventure, discovery and perseverance lives on.
A new record-breaker
Records are there to be broken. And just as Geoff overtook his predecessor, so he in turn has been overtaken by one Beatriz Flamini.
Beatriz is a Spanish athlete who spent 500 days in a 70-foot-deep cave near Granada, Spain.
When she descended in November 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic was still raging. When she emerged in April 2023, she rejoined a world in which Queen Elizabeth II had died and Kate Bush had had a late-career comeback.
Both Workman and Flamini experienced total isolation. Indeed, Flamini's team was told to avoid any direct communication with her, even in the event of a family death or illness.
Like Workman, Flamini went down with a purpose. She was being studied by a team of psychologists and scientists who were investigating the effects of isolation on her sleep patterns and sense of time.
She lost track of time on day 65. However, like Workman, she had an extensive to-do list. As well as documenting her stay with GoPros, she read, worked out, painted and knitted.
Both record-breakers share a positive outlook that can't help but raise a smile. When her team came to fetch her, she thought something must have gone wrong.
"Already?" she said. "Surely not."
How would you fare in total isolation underground? Would you read 60 books like Flamini and carry out scientific studies like Geoff? Or would you miss life above ground and call for someone to come and hoist you out?
Thanks, Geoff…
Geoff Workman is an important figure here at Stump Cross Caverns. He helped to extend the network and put Stump Cross on the map back in 1963. Sixty years on, we remember him with fondness – and raise a glass of cave water as a toast!
Would you like to follow in Geoff Workman's footsteps and investigate our mysterious underground
caves in Yorkshire? It's quick and easy to
book your tickets online.
