The other day, a Liverpool friend, who has a bungalow in the Ceiriog Valley, close to Offa's Dyke, told me he had found a cave there, which had never been explored, but was reputed to go six miles underground, to the neighbourhood of Oswestry. He invited me to come down and explore it, and I readily agreed, on the condition that he was to seize the opportunity to make his dÉbut as a cave explorer. On the side of the valley where the cave lies the hill falls steeply to the Ceiriog, and the densely-wooded cliff of Limestone that bathes its foot in the river is like a bit of Dovedale. Not so the other side of the valley, where different strata crop out, and the hills, with all their trees, rise more gently to the brow overlooking Llangollen.

The cave mouth is about 20 feet above the river, in a cliff facing due north, in which the Limestone is tilted at an angle of 45 degrees. It is recessed within a lofty arch, but the entrance itself is low, compelling us to creep for the first few yards. After two or three bends, the roof as well as the floor rises, and the passage opens into a chamber whose floor is heaped up to a height of 10 feet with fallen dÉbris, thickly plastered with mud. At first the cave runs due south, but the main axis of this chamber, which is lofty and measures about 20 feet by 20, runs east-south-east. The roof rises about 20 feet higher than the central heap of dÉbris. Water drips occasionally, but there are no stalactites. At the far end the passage turns south-east, and, though lofty, is narrow, the walls being parallel, and tilted at an angle of 20 degrees from the perpendicular. Then a second chamber widens out, 50 feet long by 6 feet broad, as muddy as the former. Rising 10 feet, the passage continues to the east-south-east, but the walls converge for a time, forcing us to crawl, extended on our sides. Then it opens out again, and we climb over more heaps of dÉbris littering the floor, and all bedaubed with thick, tenacious clay.

Now the passage becomes loftier but narrower, and progress has to be made by keeping near the roof, the walls sloping at an angle of 30 degrees from the vertical, opening at one point into a small chamber with a false floor of jammed rocks, then immediately closing again, and so continuing for a distance of 60 feet. The narrowness is so great that one goes ahead only by dint of a continuous struggle against friction. Up to this, my friend had kept close at my heels, followed by his man. But here the only way visible was down a still narrower rift bending off to the left, and the latter found his own diameter greater than that of the cave. We left him, and pushed obstinately forward, though we had not seen a sign of any person's former presence for a long distance. Nearer the cave mouth matches and candle-grease and the marks of crawling had been plentiful, local adventurers having got in nearly 100 feet.

ON THE CEIRIOG.

Photo by E. A. Baker.

UPPER CEIRIOG CAVE.

Photo by E. A. Baker.

Already we had struck the water in two or three places, but had not found it in the main passage. Now we crossed a long pool or runnel of stagnant water, which came in from under the rocks to the south-east, and climbed into a tight little curving tunnel that led back to it in a semi-circle. Beyond it, I found myself in a rift chamber, with the water coming in from under the rocks at one end, and flowing out in like manner at the other. There seemed to be no egress, till suddenly I noticed that the niche in which I was sitting was the end of a small horizontal hole or dry water-pipe, striking off at right angles. But my companion had found the tunnel too much for him. The sides bristled with points of rock, and pressed in so close that one could only wriggle through by fractions of an inch, stretched at full length on the left side. Now he made a stout attempt to get through underneath, in the water tunnel. I heard the sound of wallowing, and then my friend's head and shoulders came splashing in at the bottom of the cave, his body dragging after through water and mud. But again he stuck fast, and announced that he would give the thing up.

It was not wise to go on far alone, for fear of being left by any accident without a light; but in order to make a reconnaissance for future work I pushed through the water-pipe, and to my delight found myself in another horizontal tunnel running parallel to the main chamber. Crawling ahead, first over a clay-lined floor, and then over splinters of Limestone mixed with stalagmites, I emerged presently into an open passage, 25 or 30 feet high, with the stream peacefully reposing in one long pool at the bottom. It appeared to go on indefinitely, and I might have gone farther, but for the present determined to leave off the exploration at this point. The parallel tunnel seemed to be going straight back towards the cave mouth, and it looked as though it might form a short cut home. As a matter of fact, this was a right branch striking off from the point where our man had stuck fast. By crawling in his direction and shouting, I made him hear, and at last saw his light through a chink only three inches wide. Fallen blocks of Limestone choked the tunnel at his end, where it leaves the main passage near the roof, and in its present state this branch of the cave was practically invisible. We shifted several big stones, however, and in a few minutes my friend joined me, pleased enough to find a way out that saved the discomforts of his recent journey. He had had the misfortune to array himself in white flannels, and now the state of his garments was so deplorable that he straightway hid himself in the river, like the pseudo Marquis of Carabas, until more presentable clothing could be fetched.

LOWER CEIRIOG CAVERN.

Photo by E. A. Baker.

A veteran cave-hunter from Liverpool gladly joined me in a second visit to the Ceiriog Cavern. Our host could not be with us, but sent a village youth as his substitute. This young man was very keen and plucky, and, as things turned out, saved the situation, for my speleological friend, to his intense chagrin, failed to get through the narrow entrance to the parallel tunnel, and the two of us had to finish the job by ourselves. Climbing along the walls of the water-rift, we soon found it best to wade straight through the stream bed, and finally, when the space grew more and more restricted, to crawl through the water. Toward the end of the rift a small tunnel broke away to the left, and the water disturbed by our advance flowed into it and away down a small swallet. Wriggling through, heedless of a wetting, we came into a small chamber with four exits, each of which we explored, marking off each with a cross or arrow to prevent our losing the route back. Every branch led eventually to other points of divergence, and ultimately to small tunnels or pipes, through which the water flows in rainy weather into the head of the cavern. Having conscientiously examined every one, without finding the mythical passage to Oswestry, we returned to the tunnel of the swallet. One of the bifurcations, it was interesting to discover, led back unexpectedly into the water-rift. There were numberless chinks and fissures, and holes in the roof, leading into this network of passages, all very interesting as a concise example of the whole history of the formation of a cave; but the farthest point reached was, by measurement, only a little more than 500 feet from the entrance. Only in places were there stalactites, and those small ones. There were stalagmite curtains on the walls at one or two spots, and patches of very white amorphous tufa. Curious filaments of cave-weed, white and brown, without a vestige of leaves, abounded throughout the cavern. Not far above the cave mouth I came across the exit of the water, a beautiful spring, pouring down into the Ceiriog, a few yards away.

On the top of the hill, in a disused Limestone quarry, there were traditions of a cave opening that had been covered by a landslip for some thirty years. A man was set to work digging it out, and a small fissure was disclosed, the old channel of a tributary leading into the middle of a cave running north-north-east and south-south-west. The total length was 172 feet. The water apparently entered at the top of the left passage and ran away into a low bedding cave to the right. The floor is wet clay at present, but there are traces of large stalagmites, including one handsome "beehive"; and the roof is covered with beautiful white and amber stalactites. Our further attempts to uncover openings into the Limestone only brought us down to the solid rock, and we found nothing to confirm the rumour that a cave exists which carried a stream down to the Ceiriog, feet below.