The netherworld of Mendip : $b explorations in the great caverns of Somerset, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and elsewhereBaker, Ernest A. (Ernest Albert)
Science
The netherworld of Mendip : $b explorations in the great caverns of Somerset, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and elsewhere
Baker, Ernest A. (Ernest Albert)
Caves; Mendip Hills (England)
A day or two later we set out once more to find Phelps's Cavern. It
opens on the very crest of the ridge leading up to Crook Hill, or, as
it is more commonly known to-day, Crook's Peak, a sharp Limestone spur,
running south-east from the western extremity of Wavering Down. At the
foot of the hill, near the road, we came across a small cave, called
the Fox's Hole, which we searched thoroughly for any continuation
upwards or downwards, but in vain. After a great deal of jamming and
squeezing, we got in to a distance of 50 feet, where a low chamber
has holes between wall and floor that had acted as a water-sink to
some ancient system of cavities. But the floor was heaped with stones,
and in spite of our efforts to clear these out, we did not discover a
single hole big enough to enter. This small cave is, doubtless, but the
tail end of the cavern that once existed here; and, indeed, the large
cavern at the hilltop must be little more than a fragment of what it
was. Crook's Peak seems to be the mere skeleton of a hill. To account
for the presence of such a cavern at the summit, one must postulate
a large drainage area in days gone by, and a general configuration
entirely opposite to the present. The higher part of the hill is but a
Limestone shell enclosing these ancient, and now waterless, caverns.
The big cavern is known as Denny's Hole. Descending the sloping side
of an open pit, we found ourselves under an arch of mighty span, the
crown of which was formed by the rock-wall on the other side. Under
this arch the floor sloped precipitously into the jaws of the cavern;
then the roof came close down, and the farther passages wound onwards
as low tunnels, descending steeply into the entrails of the hill. It
is easy enough to get to a considerable depth and distance in the
largest of these, but the journey is not specially interesting, for the
place has been looted by adventurous rustics, and serious exploration
is at present brought to a standstill by the enormous quantities of
loose stones filling every cavity in the floor. Coming back to the
cave mouth, we were struck by the grandeur of the vestibule, which has
every appearance of being the remains of a great subterranean chamber,
the pit-like entrance, through which we look up to the sky and the
sunshine, being the remnant of a cave-tunnel, once perhaps of very
considerable length.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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