Goatchurch Cavern is a cave on the edge of

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

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 in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills ...

, in Somerset, 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 within the Chew Valley in Somerset, England. It lies south of Chew Valley Lake and north of the Mendip Hills, approximately south of Bristol on the A368 road Weston-super-Mare to Bath. Stowey and its neighbouring a ...

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

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; cutting, blasting, ...

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 period including bones of mammoth,

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the 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 throughout the Nor ...

, hyaena and cave lion. During November 2003 inscribed marks were noticed in Goatchurch Cavern while cleaning away graffiti. 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 produced b ...

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 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 c ...

chamber; meeting another caver 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 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 through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...

doses to users of the caves were estimated and for occupational cavers doses of in excess of 16 mSv were found to be likely.

References

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

Description

History

Surveys

See also

References