CAVE-HUNTING IN YORKSHIRE.
The finest county in all England is the great shire of York, with its rugged coast, and its rolling plains dotted with many a noble church, its wild moorlands and lofty fells, its fertile valleys with their monastic ruins and crumbling castle-keeps. Every Yorkshireman is proud of his county, whether he be foxhunting Squire, lord of thousands of its acres, or merchant-prince—a brawny artisan, toiling in one of its great manufacturing towns, or a stalwart dalesman—a miner drifting for lead in the north-west, or a pitman burrowing for coal in the south—the sturdy yeoman-farmer of the wolds, or bluff fisherman on the shores of the wild North Sea—for is it not a very epitome of his country?
Micklefell, Whernside, Ingleborough, Penyghent, and many a mountain crest on the west, the bold chalk headland and wondrous caverns of Flamborough, with the romantic stretch of cliffs round Robin Hood Bay to eastward, afford scenery of the grandest description. Swaledale, Teesdale, Wensleydale, Nidderdale, and Wharfedale, with the rich plain of York beyond stretching away to the tilled slopes of the wolds and Hambleton Hills, are gems of softer beauty. The big towns of Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Wakefield, are seats of busy commerce, whose black smoke pollutes the air, whilst the snorting engine and thundering steam-hammer resound both night and day. The broad Humber bears on its tide-ruffled bosom great fleets from Hull and Goole, which carry their wares to every corner of the world. Fountains, Bolton, Rievaulx, Kirkstall, Pervaulx, and lesser abbeys, tell of past glories; whilst York, Ripon, Selby, Beverley, and Bridlington minsters are still glories of to-day. The castles of York, Bolton, Knaresborough, Wressle, Conisbrough, Pontefract, Helmsley, Scarborough, and other relics of troublous times yet look down upon this peaceful nineteenth century. The battlefields of Stamford Bridge, Northallerton, Wakefield, Towton, and Marston Moor still speak of the share Yorkshire had in making England’s history; and grand old York, with its ancient churches and minster, its frowning Bars, and encircling city walls, recalls past fame and grandeur, when the legions garrisoned it as ‘Eboracum,’ the chief seat of the Roman power in Britain (when London was an insignificant village) long before Saxon and Dane fought in the narrow streets for possession of it as ‘Eoforwic.’ For the archæologist, the botanist, the painter, and the sportsman, old ‘Eurewicshire’ is a happy hunting-ground indeed; the antiquary and philologist alike find it a rich storehouse of quaint customs and strange dialects; whilst to the geologist and physiographist, it is a charming text-book, written in bold graceful language, with many beautiful and wondrous illustrations.
But besides all this, Yorkshire offers vast delights to the explorer and lover of adventure, in the curious subterranean water-courses and awesome caverns which abound in the limestone ranges of the north-west. Less famous than the underground chambers of Derbyshire, they are yet more numerous, and, with two or three exceptions, are utterly free from the desecrating presence of the inveterate ‘guide,’ who rushes you through them, working unseemly havoc the while with Queen’s English, as he waves his tallow candle, and bids attention to the features of the show. It is true that Clapham Cave and Stump Cross Caverns are regular stock tourist properties, where the lessees give admission and provide illuminants at a fixed charge per head; but he who would see the weird, lonely passages of Ingleborough and Penyghent must find his own way, and carry a goodly supply of candles with him, for the Great ‘Alum Pot’ is not a Poole’s Cavern which glares bravely when the gas is turned on; and no urchin hastens before to stick torches in the crevices and fissures of Catknot Hole. The real cave-hunter will rejoice at this, and fixing his headquarters at one of the little inns in the neighbourhood, will don his canvas overalls and stiff felt hat, and go forth jubilantly, well stocked with ‘dips’ and matches, not forgetting luncheon and the cheering pipe. Of course, if the caves are only to be viewed and peeped into, the ‘overalls’ are needless; but if a thorough exploration is intended, then, in addition, a stout rope some twelve yards long at least, and two companions, should be taken, for abrupt descents occur which are impassable without a rope and strong arms to hold it.
Ingleborough, with its younger brother Simon Fell, is the central landmark of the great cave district—a district lying between Penyghent and Gragreth, Cam Fell, and the village of Clapham, and measuring roughly nine miles square, which contains all the chief Yorkshire caves and ‘pot holes,’ with the exception of a group in the limestone at the head of Nidderdale—one or two at Settle and Kilnsey, and the famous ‘Stump Cross’ Cavern, which lies a little off the mountain road running over from Pateley Bridge into Wharfedale. The picturesque village of Ingleton is a pleasant headquarters from which to see Clapham and Yordas Caves, and whence Ingleborough and Whernside may be ascended; but if intent on systematically doing the district, the lonely Gearstones Inn, which stands on the moors some seven or eight miles on the road which runs up Chapel-le-dale over to Hawes in Wensleydale, is the best place to put up at. Here, within easy reach, are Douk Caves, long water-worn tunnels piercing the limestone scaurs which flank the Ingleborough range, wherein is nothing curious except a circular opening like a well, which brings down a beam of light, and gives a glimpse of blue sky thirty feet up through the rock.
Higher up the scaurs are the curious holes, or ‘pots’ as they are locally termed, ‘Meregill,’ Barefootwives, and Hardrawkin. The first is a slit in the ground about forty yards long, ranging from two to nine, and bridged now and again by stones and turf; and you can plumb it to a depth of a hundred feet, fifty at least being under water. Hardrawkin is a pot or fissure nine yards deep, which lies between two narrow caves, both of which may be explored, though water often covers the floors. Near the little gabled church of Chapel-le-dale, rendered notable by Southey’s Doctor, is Wethercote, and its complements Jingle and Hurtlepots, one of the sights of the district. The top of Wethercote is level with the ground, about fifty yards long and sixteen wide, though it narrows towards the ends. Descending fifty feet we come upon a rough arch of rock, and passing under it, are in the middle of the pot, and again descend until the bottom is reached, forty good yards below the surface of the ground. Right in front and eighteen yards above is an opening in the wall of rock; and from it a stream of water leaps in a thundering cascade, filling the pot with spray, and then diving with a shuddering rush into a low cave, disappears on its underground course to Jingle and Hurtle Pots, three hundred yards lower down the dale. The first of these is twenty yards long, and ten to three broad and fifteen deep; and the last, twenty-five yards by fifteen, and about twenty-five deep, with a sullen black pool nine or ten yards deep, from which no outlet is apparent. When the stream is low, it flows far out of sight; but after heavy rain, it can be heard and seen swirling in the dark depths of these pots; and it ‘hurtles’ out of, and thus gives name to, the larger of the two. But when the ‘floods are out,’ the sight is grand and terrible, for then Wethercote fills entirely, and overflowing, foams a torrent down the mossy ravine which scores the land above the unseen water-course below. In the hillside at the back of Gearstones is a winding passage, Catknot Hole, which a guide-book says ‘contains romantic cascades and precipices, and is near four hundred yards long.’ Three of us struggled again into our thick wet boots one evening, after dining sumptuously in the inn kitchen upon ham and eggs, and having cajoled the buxom hostess into presenting us each with a tallow dip of yellow hue and evil savour, we forded the stream in the darkness, and groped our way into the cavern’s mouth to view the said cascades. A stream flowing a foot deep suggested the advisability of doffing boots and stockings in view of a long tramp on the morrow. So, barefooted and with sputtering candles, we began the ascent, and toiled on for fifty minutes, until the dips being nearly used up, and the long passage—which was so narrow that it was difficult to force an onward way—seeming to wind on for ever, the retreat was sounded, and we struggled back, counting nine hundred paces till we reached the entrance, with an ounce of candle among the three. Of ‘cascades and precipices’ we saw never a sign; but on squeezing past sharp bends, we plentifully plastered ourselves with soft calcareous deposits, which our jackets showed next morning to be strongly impregnated with oxide of iron.
On the slopes of Penyghent are some half-dozen ‘pots,’ besides numerous openings into the ground, each with a streamlet issuing from or else plunging into it. The whole of this limestone district is, in fact, completely honeycombed by hidden passages and water-worn channels, and often a fall of roof lets daylight and the explorer into the dark passages which pierce the hillsides in all directions. ‘Hull’ and ‘Hunt’ Pots are the finest and chief of the Penyghent series; the former a huge quarry-like hole with perpendicular sides, some seventeen yards long by thirty deep, and from ten to thirty wide, into which a stream—or beck, as the local term is—leaps, making in floods a fine fall. Hunt Pot is more curious, and really is a pot in the floor of a pot; the upper one being about thirty yards by eighteen and ten deep, and having in the centre a narrow chasm, five or six yards across at the widest part, narrowing to three at a depth of twelve yards. Into the narrow end, a beck from Penyghent’s bold crest falls, filling the black depths with mist, till it reaches the bottom of the pot, sixty-five yards below; and then it flows in darkness, crossing—so tradition says—the stream from Hull Pot, until it issues in the valley as Bransil Beck, and finds its way into the infant river Ribble.
But the grandest of all these Ingleborough pots and caves, and the one which offers the most risk, and needs withal a steady nerve as well as a fearless heart if it is to be really seen and properly known, is ‘Alum Pot,’ lying on the north-west shoulder of Simon Fell, a mile above the ruined and deserted village of Selside, whose roofless and crumbling cottages and farmsteads are a fit prelude to the weird loneliness and awesomeness which seem to cling about this great chain of gloomy caverns. A rough stone wall has been built to protect the main chasm, or Alum Pot proper; and clambering over its jagged edges, we are face to face with a tremendous cleft, which can only be described by the word awful—sixty yards long by from ten to twenty wide. At the southern end, a beck comes sliding over the mossy edge, and then leaps shuddering into unseen depths, whilst a thin cold mist rises up out of the blackness. Across the pot, near the narrow end, are two balks of timber, fixed years ago, when a party of gentlemen descended this shaft; and carefully walking along them, we reach the middle, and look down into the tremendous hole, and see nothing but slimy walls of rock covered with lichens, and here and there great hartstongues hanging in the gloom, and waving in a chill upcurrent of air which blows steadily from the sunless depths. The first impression is one of nameless dread and shrinking, an effect only heightened when a large stone is dropped into the yawning gulf, and we strain ears for six long seconds before it strikes at all; and then, for several moments after, hear it falling still, rebounding lower and lower in unknown abysses beneath the plank which holds us up. After gazing steadily downwards until the eye becomes used to the chill gloom, we catch sight of a sloping dark-green plain far below, from which a stone will roll into deeper depths beneath, and see, some thirty yards down the northern side, a huge dark arch, which ends a passage coming in from the hillside.
Without a very long stout rope, it is impossible to descend Alum Pot from the bridge-balks; and to swing freely over a visible gulf which is in all three hundred yards deep is a stiff trial for ordinary nerves. So, rescaling the wall, we climb some hundred and fifty yards westward up the hillside, until we come upon several openings in the ground known collectively as Longchurn and Diccan Pots. Dropping into the hollow, we see two passages leading in different directions, and can hear in the unseen distance the roar of water on its way to Alum Pot. About ten yards down, the lower passage joins one in which a stream is foaming; and a piece of burning magnesium ribbon lights up a goodly cavern, and shows a small cascade seven or eight feet high which glistens milk-white in the brightness; and plunging into the cold waters hurrying onwards, we follow them in their winding channel, often down abrupt descents and tiny falls, for, say, sixty yards or more, until a roomier passage strikes off to the right. The stream flows straight on for some score yards, and then joins one which flows at right angles on a lower level, coming from a more westerly direction. If wading be a weakness, this route may be followed; but as underground becks are decidedly cold, even in July, the drier and loftier channel offers decided advantages. After many windings and one or two steep drops, passing lesser openings which branch off on either hand, a large and lofty chamber is reached, studded with rough rocks, terminating in a black and apparently bottomless abyss, across which a gleam of twilight struggles in from the Great Alum Pot through the arch, which is seen when looking down from the bridge. This gulf is about thirty-six yards deep, and is curiously divided down the middle by a long thin rock, which is reached after a descent of some ten or twelve yards, and affords a precarious resting-place before descending the other fifteen yards, which brings us to the mossy sloping rock visible from the top of the pot, and which crosses it at the northern end. About thirty yards along this is a break where a rock slopes down to a lower level, and forms a bridge over a depth of at least thirty-five yards; but past this, the way is easy to the south end, where the waterfall comes down from the edge of the pot, seventy yards above, to fall still twenty yards before it strikes the rocks. Descending to this level, a series of steps down yet six or seven yards leads to two further falls of some thirty and ten feet each, and then the water goes onward along a passage and disappears in darkness.
The great descent of Alum Pot was made many years ago, when the balks of timber already mentioned were thrown across at the top by several gentlemen in the neighbourhood, and the engineers who were constructing a line of railway near Settle. Upon the bridge thus formed a winch was fixed, and the explorers were let down in a bucket, two at a time, plumb seventy yards to the rocks where the waterfall strikes, thus avoiding the long tiring descent of the passage from Longchurn. The last fifty feet gave each bucket-load a drenching, for it brought them directly under the falling water—a very effective douche-bath. Leaving the pot, they followed the stream for forty yards down the passage until they came into a lofty cavern where was a waterfall forty feet in height, formed by another subterranean streamlet; and passing through this, and continuing for thirty yards further, they reached a circular hole where the water sank in a miniature whirlpool; and that was the end of the mysterious Alum Pot. Where the water goes to, is uncertain; it is said to flow under Selside village, and come to light again either in a muddy pot called Footnaws, twelve yards deep; or else to pass under the bed of the Ribble, and reappear in Turn Dub, a quiet pool ten yards across, out of which a goodly stream flows steadily into the river. One reason why the country-people hold Turn Dub to be the outlet is that, when a marble quarry which lies just above Longchurn Pot was being worked, the water in the Dub was milky and muddy like the stream which flowed into Alum Pot.