Recently, Tim and William Kynaston undertook a huge, and very welcome, litter picking project in Frodsham Caves.

My wife and I were walking around the Sandstone Trail near Frodsham in early November and passed a family who were looking for "local caves".

They couldn't find them, even though they were local themselves, but had heard of the impressive size of the caves.

This caught my interest and I researched the location and returned a couple of weeks later for a walk and cave visit.

When we found them, the caves were hidden in a beautiful grassy valley and appeared out of nowhere.

They are an amazing historical feature, with carved out chambers going back deep into the hillside – really stunning!

We were struck by the huge amount of litter both inside the caves and surrounding them outside – plastic bottles, cans, glass were strewn all around – which seemed a real shame.

I planned to return ahead of Christmas to clear them up with my Dad, William. We are both proud to live in beautiful Cheshire and are members of local litter picking groups in Wilmslow and Haslington respectively.

We rendezvoused at the caves at 10am on 17th December, kitted out with head torches, thick gloves, 'litter picking tongs' and refuse bags.

Over the next five hours we cleared the litter, which reached deep into the back chambers of the caves.

As the caves are on private land, we should say that we made every effort not to disturb any other aspect of the caves or the land around.

We thank the land owner for allowing public access via the footpath.

By the end we had filled 10 large bags with rubbish – mainly plastic bottles, glass bottles, cans, cardboard but also a pillow, an old chair and a grill!

By a stroke of luck, as we exited the site over-loaded with bags, a passing refuse collection truck spotted us and stopped in an act of Christmas kindness to allow us to throw the bags on board – it couldn't have worked out better!

We hope future visitors will enjoy the caves even more now, although caution is still advised when exploring as there may still be small pieces of broken glass in parts of the sand.

Thanks go to InFrodsham's Chris Burrows for alerting us to this inspiring story!