Sidcot Swallet is a cave near

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 Carboniferous 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. It was named after the

Sidcot School Speleological Society Sidcot School is a British co-educational independent school for boarding and day pupils, associated with the Religious Society of Friends. It is one of seven Quaker schools in England. The school is based in the Mendip Hills near the village of ...

who explored it in 1925. A swallet, also known as a sinkhole, sink, shakehole, swallow hole or doline, is a natural depression or hole in the surface topography caused by the removal of soil or bedrock, often both, by water flowing beneath. After

Goatchurch Cavern Goatchurch Cavern is a cave on the edge of Burrington Combe in the limestone of the Mendip Hills, in Somerset, England. Description Due to early attempts to turn it into a show cave, there are remains of iron handrails inside the cave and a ...

, Sidcot Swallet is probably the most popular cave on Mendip for novice parties. What it lacks in length or depth is adequately compensated for by its sporty squeezes and narrow crawls. Despite its popularity, many calcite formations still remain intact in the farthest reaches of the cave.

References

Caves of the Mendip Hills Limestone caves Wild caves Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1992 {{Somerset-geo-stub

See also

References