Wookey Hole Caves

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Skeleton of the "Witch of Wookey Hole" in the Mendip Museum

The Wookey Hole Caves are limestone caves in the village of Wookey Hole on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills near Wells in Somerset , England . The River Ax flows through the caves.

It is made of biological and geological reasons, a site of special scientific interest ( English Site of Special Scientific Interest - SSSI). The Wookey Hole Cave is a karst cave ( English solution cave ), which is formed by weathering processes in which limestone is dissolved in the water. Rainwater also formed the Eastwater Cavern, St Cuthberts Swallet and Swildon's Hole. The temperature in the caves is constant at 11 ° C. Part of the cave system was opened as a show cave in 1927. The caves have also been used as a location for film and television productions.

The fact that the caves have been used by humans for around 45,000 years is evident from the discovery of tools and fossilized animal remains from the Paleolithic . The Stone Age and Iron Age use continued in Roman Britain.

A flour mill was already in operation on the Ax from 1086 . The oldest paper mill in Great Britain began operating around 1610 . Due to the constant low temperature of the caves, they were also used to ripen cheddar cheese.

  • Wookey Hole Caves

  • The cheese ripening

  • The river

  • A cave lake

  • Exit of the Ax from Wookey Hole Caves

William Boyd Dawkins (1837–1929) began excavating a hyena in the caves in 1859 . The Wookey Hole Caves and Cheddar Gorge , ten kilometers away, are now inhabited by colonies of the large and small horseshoe bat , two rare species of bat .

The caves are the site of the first cave dives in Britain by Jack Sheppard and Graham Balcombe. Since the 1930s, divers have explored the network of chambers, developing breathing apparatus and novel techniques. The full extent of the cave system is still unknown, although approximately 4000 meters (and 25 chambers) have been explored. The cave is best known for the Wookey Hole Witch - an anthropomorphic stalagmite which legend says was turned to stone by a monk from Glastonbury.

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Coordinates: 51 ° 13 ′ 45.5 "  N , 2 ° 40 ′ 18.4"  W.