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If you drive over the bleak Yorkshire Dales at Greenhow
Hill near Pateley Bridge, you might think the most beautiful thing
around is the rolling landscape.
But if you were to plunge 18 metres below the ground at this point,
you'd find yourself in the incredible limestone caves of Stump Cross
Caverns.
Cave facts
And in fact you can plunge below the ground;
these are show caves which can be accessed by some steps in the
visitors centre at Stump Cross.
During the Carboniferous period 350 million years ago, this area
of the Yorkshire Dales was under a warm, shallow sea. You can still
see the impressions of coral beds and ridges made by the sea in
the caves.
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| The
Curtain in Wolverine cave |
The caves were discovered in January 1860 by lead miners Mark and
William Newbould.
Most lead miners disliked finding caves during their work because
they didn't contain lead ore and were only of use for filling with
waste rock. But the Newboulds were from Derbyshire and had seen
the popularity of the show caves at Castleton.
They realised the potential of Stump Cross Caverns, and the caves
were opened to the public in 1863 at a charge of one shilling.
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| The
Sentinel is nearly 3 metres high and estimated to be at least
200,000 years old. |
There are three and a half miles of passageways in the caves at
Stump Cross, but many of these are hard-going even for the most
experienced cave explorers, and are not open to the public.
WOLVERINE CAVE
Wolverine is so called because during its excavation, the bones
of bison, wolf, reindeer and other small mammals - including wolverine
- were discovered.
Study of the bones has revealed that their ages range from 35,000
to 200,000 years old and suggest that the climate and vegetation
when these animals lived on Greenhow Hill must have been very similar
to the conditions found in parts of Scandinavia, Canada and Siberia
today.
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| The 'Organ'
in The Cathedral at Stump Cross Caverns. Can you spot the cat? |
Very few other fossil remains of wolverine
have been found anywhere else in the British Isles.
REINDEER CAVERN
Geoff Workman, discovered a very well decorated length of passage
in 1996. This is known as Reindeer Cavern and it opened to the public
in 2000. Now in his 70's, Geoff still potholes at least two days
a week.
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FACTS
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The caves are 18 metres below the ground and
are only 7 degrees all the year round. |
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In 1963, Geoff Workman spent a solitary 105 days in the caves,
linked to the surface by emergency telephone only. He wanted
to see what effect darkness and an absence of time had on the
human body-clock. |
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Stalagmites and stalactites
Q: How do you remember what a stalactite is and what a
stalagmite is?
A: Hold on to your tights with all your might,
because the tites come down and the mites
go UP!
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How do stalactites form?
- On its way through the limestone, the slightly
acidic rainfall takes some of the rock it dissolves, as
well as some CO2 from the atmosphere and the soil.
- When it reaches a cave passage, a bit of
the CO2 is released back into the air. This reduces its
acidity and the amount of calcium carbonate in the solution.
- A minute ring of the crystalline mineral
called aclcite forms on the ceiling, and the drip falls
on the floor.
- Over time, these deposits form the stalactites
in the caves
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| Source: Stump
Cross Caverns - Official Guide to the Show Caves by Harry
Long |
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