Part 9
Next morning we strolled up the defile and looked at the mouths of several caves that are now choked up. Two furlongs above its entrance the ravine makes a double curve like a gigantic figure three. The two crescents of beetling Limestone, with their jutting horns, that appear to the astonished beholder underneath like towering pyramids and slim aiguilles, rise to a vertical height of 430 feet, and, being absolutely unassailable, they fill a crag climber's mind with admiration tempered by regret. What enhances their grandeur, while it softens the savage aspect of the sheer and ledgeless precipice, is the bountiful vegetation clinging wherever it can find a hold, dark shrouds of ivy and darker masses of yew standing out against the grey rock in beautiful relief. Would the indomitable scramblers who haunt Lakeland at Easter, we asked ourselves, have forced a way up these tremendous "chimneys" if the Cheddar cliffs had been pitched somewhere in the latitude of Wastdale? We went so far as to reconnoitre one alluring fissure, 200 feet or more in length, but the gap between its base and the first feasible lodgment was insuperable. Not far away a long talus of scree marks the foot of an easy though rather sensational way to the cliff top. Passing it by, we stopped at the mouth of a vertical fissure that opens on to the roadway. It expands slightly inside, and the roof soars higher and higher; then the floor breaks away, and the two men who descended the next 80 feet had to be steadied by the rope. The walls were wet and soft, being incrusted with a sticky calcareous substance. At the bottom of the precipitous slope the magnesium ribbon revealed the enormously lofty walls of a narrow chamber, whose farther extent was blocked up by an accumulation of rocks and débris.
Returning to the open air, we ascended to the cliff top, and, skirting each promontory and rounding the edge of every bay, proceeded towards the mouth of the defile on the lookout for openings. Not far from the highest point we had noticed from the road a series of dark cavities. One man scrambled along a ledge to the uppermost of these, and found that it was merely a shallow niche, and another, on a ledge some 50 feet lower, proved to be only 20 feet deep. He made a determined effort to reach another fissure on the same level as the last but sundered from it by a wide space of cliff which was covered with dense brambles. Holding on to the prickly stems, and fighting his way through, he got near enough to see into the fissure, but was quite unable to enter it for a closer examination. An opening in the cliffs at a lower point, but still some 200 feet above the road, led a long way into the recesses of the Limestone strata, making two wide curves to the right, but maintaining a generally easterly direction. The passages were very low, narrow, and awkwardly shaped, involving a great deal of unpleasant crawling; and when we reached the stalagmite grotto at the end we found that it had been pillaged of every bit of calcite that could be removed. This cavern, the "Long Hole," must have been the channel of a stream that once flowed from somewhere on the other side of the gorge, through the mass of rock that has now been swept away by the forces of disintegration. Though several hundred feet long, it is but the tail end of the cavern that once existed.
The remainder of our time was devoted to two of the Burrington caverns, on the opposite side of the Mendip Hills, and to a fruitless search for a large chasm or swallet hole into which the drainage from the now abandoned lead mines on the top of Mendip used to fall and ultimately find its way to Cheddar, where it poisoned the trout stream. A score or more of years ago I saw these mines, still in working order; but now the dried-up pools and the wilderness of refuse, with fragments of ruined buildings, look as old almost as the remains of the Roman mines. Of the important opening that we sought there is now no trace; it may have been filled up intentionally and the stream allowed to revert to its old channel, whence it had been turned artificially. Hard by, in the Long Wood near Charterhouse, and elsewhere, there are smaller swallets that we were already acquainted with; and there are others at Priddy, the waters of which find an exit farther to the east.
The ground we were on is well known to readers of Walter Raymond's romances, and we were much interested when it was pointed out that the lonely house facing us was the actual Ubley Farm that figures in _Two Men o' Mendip_.
E. A. B.
THE BURRINGTON CAVERNS
Burrington Combe is a smaller Limestone defile on the north side of Mendip--that is to say, the opposite side to that of Cheddar. It is smaller, and because of its proximity to Cheddar it has to suffer disadvantageous comparisons. Anywhere else the grandeur of Burrington Combe, the magnificence of its crags, with dark, heather-clad Black Down lowering behind them, and the beauty of the copses that lurk in its corners and clamber up its precipices, would excite the admiration of guide-books and attract crowds of tourists. Like the Cheddar defile, Burrington Combe was doubtless formed by the gradual destruction of a series of caverns, and there remains of that series a number of caves or openings of blocked-up caves on either side of the ravine. Of these the most important and the only one well known to speleologists is Goatchurch Cavern, which was explored by Professor Boyd Dawkins in 1864. The next in importance is Aveline's Hole, discovered in 1796, but not explored till 1820, when about fifty human skeletons were found lying side by side with their weapons, a stalagmitic crust sealing bones and implements to the floor. This cavern has since had its mouth silted up by drainage from the road, so that troublesome excavation will have to be undertaken before it can be entered again. It would well repay a thorough exploration, for it is reported that a natural pit, covered by a slab, has never yet been descended, and leads probably into important cavities. Foxe's Hole is interesting for its curious bosses of tufaceous stalactite. A nearly vertical cave, Plumley's Den, has been stopped up with a plug of timber and stones at the depth of 80 feet, in consequence of a fatal accident to a man who tried to descend it in 1875. At a level probably a few feet below that of the caves whose destruction was the origin of the Combe, a good road with a grassy margin now ascends towards the top of Mendip, where it joins the old Roman road that runs from "Severn Sea" to Old Sarum, along the crown of the ridge.
Our waggonette when we left the Bath Arms at Cheddar was piled up with ropes, cameras, gas cylinders, condensers for the searchlight, and an incredible amount of needful and superfluous things, for we were quite unable to say what would be wanted. Climbing to the miniature mountain pass across Mendip at Shipham was hard work for the horse, and we walked up the hill. Dr. Sheldon and Mr. Bamforth were my companions. Our clothes, still richly daubed with the clay and mire of the Cheddar caverns, made our appearance both business-like and picturesque. The north side of the Mendips is very different from the bleak and craggy slopes on the south. From the broad bare top of the hills down to the valley stretches, almost continuously, a deep mass of trees that looks in the distance like a wall of dusky verdure. We drove between orchards where great bushes of mistletoe grew on nearly every tree, till we were within a few hundred yards of Burrington village; then, turning towards Mendip, we drove through more orchards, till suddenly the rocky entrance of the Combe appeared and we heard the clink of pick and crowbar in the Limestone quarry not far from Plumley's Den. Half-way up the gorge makes a sudden bend towards the east, a little below which point a shallower ravine comes in on the other side. About 120 feet above the bed of this dry ravine is the entrance to Goatchurch Cavern. We coaxed the horse over the stony turf and up the ravine till the roughness of the ground and the thickness of the bramble bushes stopped him. At this point we were met by the lord of the manor, Mr. James Gibson of Langford, who is the owner of the Burrington caves. His men assisted us to get our apparatus up to the cave mouth, and afterwards convoyed us and the luggage throughout the less difficult parts of the cavern.
A few years ago the entrance to Goatchurch Cavern was an insignificant hole, through which adventurous boys used to crawl as far as the first considerable chamber, where Professor Boyd Dawkins found a few remains of extinct animals. Owing to the depredations which were made by neighbouring villagers in search of specimens of calcite, Mr. Gibson recently had the entrance enlarged and closed with a padlocked gate, the public being admitted only on certain days of the week or by appointment. It is a pity this step was not taken before many of the finer stalactites had been carried away. In this long chamber, the floor of which is covered with sheets and bosses of dripstone, we entered some of the funnel-shaped openings in the roof by means of a ladder, but soon perceived that no discoveries were to be made that way. At the end of the chamber a precipitous hole goes down to the left, and fixed ropes are used for getting into the lower galleries. We found ourselves at once entering on a maze of passages, where the presence of our guides saved valuable time. So intricate and bewildering are these ramifications that Mr. Balch tells me that he discovered a passage some years ago that led him eventually to a much deeper part of the cavern than had ever been reached before, but every attempt to rediscover the passage since has failed. In spite of our efforts to examine every branch of the various passages, we also missed this important link. It would seem that the solid mass of the hill has been shivered here into vast, roughly cubical fragments, between which lie the irregular passages and narrow chambers of the cavern. Many tempting galleries lead the explorer on and on till they dwindle to a mere rabbit hole, or till he finds himself wedged in the cleft between two enormous surfaces of rock. Disorderly accumulations of boulders and splinters cover the floor; there is hardly a level spot anywhere, and it is desirable to explore every yard carefully with a taper or a lantern to avoid the consequences of a rash step. We crawled on hands and knees and wormed along through insignificant holes, making our way into spots that had probably not been inspected before; but we always came back to the main channel, where our guides were waiting, having made no noteworthy find.
Assembling again in a more roomy chamber, about 140 feet below the entrance, we all proceeded along a tunnel that showed evident traces of the action of a stream to another chamber, where the sound of running water came up from a grim-looking chasm. Only two of us went beyond this point. The rest secured the rope, whilst we climbed down the steep hole into a large cavern through which the stream runs from the swallet hole in the ravine outside on its way to Rickford Rising, where it issues in considerable volume. The stream has a somewhat puzzling course after leaving the cavern, for it runs underground athwart Burrington Combe and through the solid hill opposite, Burrington Ham. This stream, as Professor Boyd Dawkins pointed out, was doubtless the originating cause of Goatchurch Cavern, running in at the present mouth, which is now dry. The ravine outside has since been hollowed out to a further depth of 120 feet, and the stream finds its way in at a lower level. The Professor also describes a very pretty experiment. Having taken the temperature of the stream before it enters the cave, he tested it again after it had run some distance underground, finding that it was here several degrees cooler. It is obvious that a colder stream must have joined it at some unknown point midway.
The nethermost series of chambers and passages are not very different from those above, their shape rugged and irregular, and their floor heaped up with fragments of all sizes. We reached no lower point than that attained by previous explorers--that is, 220 feet below the entrance, as measured by aneroid. Squeezing with difficulty through the deepest fissure, I found myself in a small cave, whence, turning round, I only perceived one exit. It looked and felt so small that I despaired of pushing through and turned to go back, when it suddenly occurred to me that this was the hole I had come in by, and there was no other way out. Such little incidents often happen in cave work, but most often in such a complicated network of tunnels and fissures as the Goatchurch Cavern, where we were quite convinced that an important passage ran due east until the compass assured us that the direction was west. Clambering up a steep bank of stiff clay out of the lowest cave, we reached a vaulted grotto with a cascade of stalagmite flowing down one side. On the edge of this a sloping passage disclosed itself, lined with stalagmite, and we ascended it in the expectation of finding something new. It brought us by an easy scramble back to the upper cave, whence we had descended on the rope; and with little more deviation from the main passages we made our way back to the cave mouth, where a well-earned lunch was waiting.
But little time was wasted in examining the silted-up entrance to Aveline's Hole and another cave mouth, and the next halt was made at Plumley's Den. Tying two Alpine ropes together, a pair of us descended this ancient pothole as far as the artificial pile of débris that blocks it up. One man was hit rather severely by a dislodged stone--a serious danger in caves of this sort--and in returning he dropped and smashed his acetylene lamp. The hole is effectually plugged, a tree and a quantity of stone having been flung in after Plumley's fatal mishap; and until Mr. Gibson carries out his proposal to remove the stones that block it, the 200 feet which are said, on doubtful authority, to lie beyond can never be explored. Mr. Gibson also proposes to bore a new entrance from the Combe into the lower series of caves at Goatchurch. Above Plumley's Den a magnificent rib of Limestone, like those at Matlock, springs nearly to the hilltop; and over the way a picturesque pile of crag comes out to meet it, and is known as the "Rock of Ages," from the tradition that Toplady, the divine, taking shelter under it from a storm, composed his famous hymn there.
Still piloted by our kind host, we walked across Burrington Ham and saw the brook which we had heard babbling amid the silence of Goatchurch Cavern flowing out, a strong body of water, at Rickford Rising, after a subterranean course of about two miles from its sources high up on Black Down.
Rickford Rising is in the Secondary beds, but a short mile up the beautiful Combe at whose outlet it lies, a Limestone ridge comes down to the road. Hard by the extremity is a hole in the rocky ground, now almost entirely choked with stones, but not so many years ago an open pit. It is known as the "Squire's Well." Here, in times of continuous rain, a body of water issues forth, often flooding the road. It seems to be connected with the water-channels that feed Rickford Rising, to which it acts as a safety valve. To open it would not be a very serious affair, and might discover something interesting.
At the back of Mendip Lodge, on the hill immediately west of Burrington Combe, the hilltop is cut up by innumerable ravines ending in swallets, the water of which comes to light again in a large stream in the Yeo valley near Upper Langford, about a mile away. Several of these swallets look as if they would repay the trouble of a little excavation; and the size of the stream at the point of issue indicates the existence of large cavities in the line of its subterranean course.
E. A. B.
THE CORAL CAVE AT COMPTON BISHOP
A cave just discovered near Compton Bishop, on the skirts of Mendip, furnishes valuable evidence in corroboration of the theory that the Limestone caverns of this region were formed at a period enormously anterior to that generally accepted. It is situated a little way up the slope of Wavering Down, only a short distance above the upper limit of the red marl laid down in the Triassic age, unconformably on the denuded edges of the Carboniferous Limestone.
We had been engaged in some exploring work in the Cheddar caves, the results of which were of a negative kind, but none the less important, as modifying the lines of costly excavation. Accompanied by the Messrs. Gough, the proprietors of the great cave at Cheddar, we proceeded late in the day to Axbridge, where Mr. Balch joined the party. Our goal was a certain cavern, explored about a century ago, and described by the antiquary Phelps, but now little known. This purpose was, however, not carried out that day, for in making inquiries about the cave as we passed through the village of Cross, we got wind of a cavern that had never yet been explored, and was therefore treasure-trove to such ardent cave workers. Two years ago, in blasting for stone to line a drinking-place for cattle, a farmer had blown a hole into the top of a subterranean cavity. Two 30-rung ladders were lashed together, so we learned, and a bold countryman, secured by a cart-rope, descended into the mysterious hollow, alighting on a slope of shifting stones and earth, whence he could see a second chasm, black as Tophet and of unknown profundity, yawning beneath him. No one would venture on this further descent; a rock was rolled against the opening to prevent sheep or incautious persons from tumbling in, and there for the time being was an end of the matter.
Our first task was to withdraw this formidable plug. It was a sound, unfissured block of Mountain Limestone, weighing perhaps half a ton. We thought that six men with a rope ought to move it easily; but we could not make it budge. A spade and a crowbar were fetched, with which we laboured diligently for an hour; but the only effect was to drop the stone deeper into the hole. A sledgehammer was now obtained from the nearest smithy, and one after another we attacked the foe with might and main. At length it yielded. Pieces flaked off, and at last it split; the fragments tumbled into the chasm, and the rock, diminished to half its former size, was rolled away. The job had taken two hours and a half, and it was now dark.
Mr. Balch and I cast lots for the honour of the first descent: it fell to me. An Alpine Club rope was tied on as life-line, whilst a 70-foot cotton rope was to be used for lowering and lifting. Slung in a bight of the latter, I was carefully let down over the cliff-like face below the entrance. The cavity formed part of a huge choked swallet, which extended up into the hill above the point where we had been working, and ran away obliquely underneath, so that I was coming down from a hole perforating one corner of the roof. Over against the hole was the steep slope of earth and scree already mentioned, steep almost as a wall, and the scree so loose that it seemed to be in a state of suspended animation. As soon as one came into contact with the treacherous stuff, an avalanche of stones was launched, and I sought in vain for a spot where it would be safe to unrope and await the next man. The cliff down which I had been lowered was undercut by a wide archway, through which I looked into a black, forbidding pit gaping at the bottom. With nowhere to rest, and with the risk of falling stones, it was obviously wiser to finish the descent before another man started.
Tying the loose rope round me (for it was necessary to swing out under the arch), I was let down slowly, and began to slip over a smooth, greasy rock-face into the unknown cavity. At 60 feet from the ground I alighted at the top of a slope of stones, and was able to remove the ropes and scramble to the bottom. Lighting some magnesium wire, I found myself in a bell-shaped chamber about 65 feet high, opening above by the precipitous archway into the upper cavity, and on the other side into an ascending vault running north-west. All around were the indelible marks of water action in the remote past. On the upper side the rocks were carved and pitted as by the swirling of a violent torrent. But there was now no sign of running water, only the drip, drip from the moist roof; and the outlet of the ancient stream at the bottom of the cavern was blocked up by a deep accumulation of débris. Among the countless fragments strewn all over the floor I found a large stone covered with a mass of dog-tooth crystals, clear as diamonds and large as walnuts. But at the very bottom of the place was something even more lovely, myriads upon myriads of exquisite spicules of carbonate, some little more than specks of red, orange, and amber, but thousands like wee tendrils of coral three-eighths of an inch in length. They were the growth, through age after age, of a splash deposit from the roof or from the stream that had disappeared. Such a formation is not rare in water caverns; but in such beauty of shape and hue it is rare indeed, for these tender little crystal flowers took all manner of forms, blossoming ofttimes into wreaths and clusters like a miniature coral. One of the most exquisite and most puzzling features was that the dots and spicules were often arranged in set patterns, symmetrical and even geometrical, in tiny circles, squares, and triangles, by the rhythmic action of the waters that had left this beautiful record of their passage. We named the cave the Coral Cavern.
As the descent had not been direct, and there might be difficulty in recovering the ropes if once let go, it seemed most prudent that no one should follow me down for the present. Climbing the slopes of rocks and scree that led up through a lofty vault to the north-west, I reached a height of considerably more than 100 feet above the floor of the Coral Cavern, the present floor of which is 90 feet below the point of entrance. The open way then came to an end abruptly, in a tiny grotto, at a distance of 240 feet from that point. But hard by there were funnel-like cavities penetrating the roof, and hinting at the proximity of a Secondary swallet hole on the hillside close overhead. Evidently, when the cave was in working order, in times of indefinable remoteness, a big stream had run down this steep vaulted passage, and united with the main stream at the bottom, both then pursuing their way into the fissures of the rock, and ultimately finding an exit into the open air at some point now buried under Triassic deposits. Enormous slabs of Limestone, smooth, and fitting close over each other like boiler-plates, formed the sloping floor of this tunnel on one side. These too were a conspicuous testimony to powerful water action.
At present the red marl of the Trias comes nearly up to the artificial entrance of the cavity. It is obvious that when the cave was occupied by a stream, its waters must have found a vent some distance below the upper limit of the marl; whence it necessarily follows that the marl has been laid down here since that period. Much evidence has been gathered in the course of our cave work in the Mendips to show that many of the caverns are older than the vast accumulations of Dolomitic Conglomerate and other deposits of Triassic age, but nowhere is the proof put so clearly and concisely as by the new cave at Compton Bishop.