Goatchurch Cavern is a cave on the edge of

Burrington Combe Burrington Combe is a Carboniferous Limestone Canyon, gorge near the village of Burrington, Somerset, Burrington, on the north side of the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, in North Somerset, England. "Combe" or "coombe" is a wo ...

in the limestone of the

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath, Somerset, Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the River Frome, Somerset ...

, in

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

, England.

Description

Due to early attempts to turn it into a

show cave A show cave—also called tourist cave, public cave, and, in the United States, commercial cave—is a cave which has been made accessible to the public for guided visits. Definition A show cave is a cave that has been made accessible to ...

, there are remains of iron handrails inside the cave and a large amount of decoration throughout the cave. Many of the surfaces within are highly polished and slippery, as a result of numbers visiting over many decades, which have also damaged the decoration. The cave is especially popular for training people who are new to caving. This is due to its easy access and wide range of experiences that do not necessitate the use of special equipment such as ropes or ladders. The two entrances to the cave enable cavers to do a through trip.

History

The earliest written record of this cave was in 1736 when John Strachey of

Sutton Court Sutton Court is an English house remodelled by Thomas Henry Wyatt in the 1850s from a manor house built in the 15th and 16th centuries around a 14th-century fortified pele tower and surrounding buildings. The house has been designated as Grad ...

at nearby

Stowey Stowey is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Stowey Sutton, in the Bath and North East Somerset district, in the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. It lies within the Chew Valley, south of Chew Valley Lake and ...

made reference to "guy Hole" or "Goechurch". In 1829 John Rutter wrote about the large cave and in 1864

William Boyd Dawkins Sir William Boyd Dawkins (26 December 183715 January 1929) was a British geologist and archaeologist. He was a member of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, Curator of the Manchester Museum and Professor of Geology at Owens College, M ...

referred to it as "The Goatchurch" although he also used the name "Goat's Hole" in 1874. It is possible that the local dialect corrupted "Guy" into "Goat" to provide the current name. It is thought that Goatchurch Cavern was explored by

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

miner A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...

s in the 19th century. Around 1900 the owner unsuccessfully tried to turn it into a

. In 1924 UBSS dug open the second entrance. Notes of exploration in the 1920s record finds from the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

period including bones of

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family (biology), family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats ...

hyaena The striped hyena (''Hyaena hyaena'') is a species of hyena native to North and East Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. It is the only extant species in the genus ''Hyaena''. It is listed by the IUC ...

and cave lion. During November 2003 inscribed marks were noticed in Goatchurch Cavern while cleaning away

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

. Three finely cut marks were uncovered, resembling the letter W with a

patina Patina ( or ) is a thin layer that variously forms on the surface of copper, brass, bronze, and similar metals and metal alloys ( tarnish produced by oxidation or other chemical processes), or certain stones and wooden furniture (sheen prod ...

darker than in nearby graffiti dated 1704. These have been identified as ritual protection marks, possibly dating from the period 1550 to 1750. The term 'ritual protection mark' was preferred to the description " witch marks".

Surveys

The cave is historically understood to be approximately 750 metres (2,500 ft) long, although 1500 m (4900 ft) of surveyed passage has been measured ( UBSS, unpublished survey, pending: 2007) and reaches a surveyed depth of 61.5 m (202 ft). It has two entrances and a complex network of predominantly dry passages terminating, for most visitors, in a thin

phreatic ''Phreatic'' is a term used in hydrology to refer to aquifers, in speleology to refer to cave passages, and in volcanology to refer to a type of volcanic eruption. Hydrology The term phreatic (the word originates from the Greek , meaning "well" ...

tube known as 'The Drainpipe' or 'The Bunny Run'. This is a long tight wriggle through 30 ft (9 m) of passageway that is only practically navigable whilst travelling forwards, something that is of relevance due to the Drainpipe terminating in a small blind-ending

boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...

chamber; meeting another

caver Caving, also known as spelunking (United States and Canada) and potholing (United Kingdom and Ireland), is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology is the scientific ...

halfway is not a pleasant experience. Another notable feature of the cave is 'The Coffin Lid'. This is where a rock, often likened to a coffin by cavers, partially blocks the way down. A survey was conducted within Goatchurch Cavern to investigate the effect of seasonal variations on the recorded

radon Radon is a chemical element; it has symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive noble gas and is colorless and odorless. Of the three naturally occurring radon isotopes, only Rn has a sufficiently long half-life (3.825 days) for it to b ...

concentration, from which an average summer to winter ratio of 4.79 was determined.

Radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'' consisting of photons, such as radio waves, microwaves, infr ...

doses to users of the caves were estimated and for occupational cavers doses of in excess of 16

mSv mSv or MSV may refer to: * Maize streak virus, a plant disease * Medium-speed vehicle, US category * Medium Systems Vehicle, a class of fictional artificially intelligent starship in The Culture universe of late Scottish author Iain Banks * Mi ...

were found to be likely.

References

{{Mendip Hills Caves of the Mendip Hills Limestone caves Wild caves

Description

History

Surveys

See also

References