Descent Magazine

Descent Magazine was launched in January 1969.
Since then it has moved from being a small-format monochrome publication to an A4 full-colour magazine.

In all these years, it has had only three editors: Bruce Bedford (1969 - 1988), Chris Howes & Judith Calford (1988 - 2022), and Chris Scaife & Carolina Smith, the current editors.

Since its inception, Descent has been serving cavers and caving aficionados, to this day it remains the world's only independent caving magazine in the English language.

The Adopt a Cave scheme was spurred on by Bruce Bedford in 1977.
As he stated in his editorial for Descent 37, the goal was clear: a group or club would "adopt" a cave (or two) and keep it as clean as possible, whilst also keeping "an eye open for possible safety, access or conservation problems".

Now, over 40 years later, litter and conservation concerns can still cause problems, and we applaud initiatives like The Big Underground Clean-Up UK.

Descent is proud to have been able to offer the Adopt a Cave scheme list as a starting point, & to support this endeavour.

Click this Image above to see the latest Edition Descent Magazine!