The Netherworld of Mendip / Explorations in the great caverns of Somerset, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and elsewhere

EXPLORING WOOKEY HOLE

"Where Albion's western hills slope to the sea,
There is a cave, and o'er its dismal mouth,
Whence come to quick, mysterious ears hoarse sounds
Of giant revelry, the ivy grew
And shut the old sepulchral darkness in;
And by its side a well, whence ever full
And ever overflowing, silent, deep,
And cold as death, the waters creep
Adown the broken rocks in search of day.
Above it frowns a fretted, stony brow,
And only from the setting sun e'er came
Within that place the joyfulness of light."

W. W. Smith, Angels and Men: a Poem.

Hardly anywhere else in Britain is the mind borne down with such a sense of incalculable antiquity as at Wookey Hole. Nowhere, certainly, is there anything like such a continuous record from ages inconceivably remote. To touch first of all upon periods that are historical and measurable, we have the name Wookey, which appears to be the one bestowed by the ancient Britons; for it is a recognisable corruption—especially as the people of the district sound it, "Ookey"—of the Celtic Ogo, a cavern, the same word, Ogof, as the modern Welsh still apply to several caves in the Principality. Clemens Alexandrinus, in the second century A.D., has a reference to the cavern, and there are periodical allusions in Latin and English writers from that time to the present. In the Middle Ages its fame as one of the wonders of England was great. William of Worcester has a quaint description; he says, "Its entrance is narrow, and the ymage of a man stands beside it called the Porter, of whom leave to enter the Hall of Wokey is to be obtained." What became of this janitor is now unknown, unless he be represented by the recumbent monolith still to be seen outside the portal. References to the antiquities of Wookey Hole occur in Leland's Itinerary and in Camden's Britannia, and there is incorporated in Percy's Reliques a ballad, by an eighteenth-century virtuoso, Dr. Harrington of Bath, entitled "The Witch of Wokey," recounting an old legend of the neighbourhood.

"In aunciente dayes, tradition showes,
A base and wicked elfe arose
The Witch of Wokey hight."

So it begins, and goes on to relate, in the sham antique style of the day, how a malevolent old woman was for her misdeeds changed to stone by a "lerned clerk of Glaston." The Witch, a black, aquiline profile in stone and stalagmite, is with her culinary utensils the chief attraction to sightseers in the first great chamber, or, as it is sometimes called, the Witch's Kitchen.

PROFILE OF THE "WITCH OF WOOKEY," WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN.

Photo by H. E. Balch.

AMONG THE POOLS, WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN.

Photo by H. E. Balch.

It is impressive enough to stand beside the very modern-looking paper-mill, where the infant Axe, still dazzled by its sudden entry into the sunlight, is harnessed to assist in the manufacture of such workaday commodities as Bank-note paper, and to see before one things that carry the memory back all those stages; yet it is but the last few pages of the voluminous history that we are considering now. Professor Boyd Dawkins, who won his spurs as a palÆontologist by his researches at Wookey Hole, discovered in the neighbouring HyÆna Den, which is really a branch of the old cavern, human and animal remains whose antiquity, compared with the periods just reviewed, is as the age of Stonehenge compared with that of a man. In the less known passages of the Hole itself, such relics have constantly been found in the course of our investigations. Potsherds, celts, bone implements, the carbonised embers from ancient hearths, all sorts of refuse lying in odd corners, have continually brought us, as it were, face to face with the time when man was little more than the king of beasts. Whosoever would read in the deeper chapters of this vast chronicle must be referred to the fascinating pages of Cave Hunting; there will be only an occasional glance at the human history in this record of a different class of exploration. PalÆontological research has not been our object. Several of my companions have made some valuable discoveries in this line, and are intent on making more; but my own original motive, and that of several others, was the sport, as much as the scientific results, to be enjoyed in endeavouring to work out the great problem of the waters that have made themselves a road through the underworld of Mendip, and found an escape from bondage at Wookey Hole. This cavern has been known so long and so familiarly, that it must have seemed as if there were nothing more to be found out about it. It will, surely, be a surprise to many to learn what important additions have recently been made to the extent of its known and accessible passages, and what progress there has been in explaining the secrets of its water system. We are, in all probability, on the brink of yet more startling revelations.

Drayton complained, in "Polyolbion," that the renown of the Devil's Hole in the Peak of Derbyshire, then as in the present day, had robbed the Somersetshire cave of some of its glory.

"Yet Ochy's dreadful Hole still held herself disgrac'd
With th' wonders of this Isle that she should not be plac'd:
But that which vex'd her most, was that the Peakish Cave
Before her darksome self such dignity should have."

Many things here bring to mind the Derbyshire cavern, which several of our party had explored pretty thoroughly before we did any serious work in Somerset—the approach along the deep wooded ravine cut through the Dolomitic Conglomerate, the river pouring out from vast reservoirs within the earth, the legendary associations, and the mystery shrouding the stream's subterranean course. From the drainage area about Priddy, 700 feet above, on the top of Mendip, these waters find their way down through a multitude of channels. Most of these passages are quite unknown, but the two most important, of which a good deal will be said presently,—the Eastwater Swallet and Swildon's Hole,—have been explored to a considerable depth. In the latter we have got to a depth of 300 feet, but natural obstacles and other difficulties have prevented us from following the stream-course farther. Mr. Balch has traced the Eastwater Swallet, which he opened in 1902, to the depth of 500 feet below the point of absorption—almost, that is to say, down to the level of Wookey Hole; but an enormous thickness of rock still remains unexplored between the farthest points attained, from below upwards and from above downwards. Most likely, when we get farther, if we succeed in passing the present obstacles, we shall soon find ourselves entering the canals and water caverns that lie on the same level as the great natural reservoirs of Wookey Hole; in other words, we are approaching the plane of saturation. Exploration in the Eastwater Swallet is still being carried on, though perforce very slowly; and concurrently therewith, efforts are being made, not without success, to trace the passages in the lower cavern farther and farther back.

MASS OF STALAGMITE, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by H. E. Balch.

IN THE FIRST CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN.

Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth.

The summer tourist, conducted through the three principal chambers of Wookey Hole by a guide armed with a can of benzoline, for making stalagmites into torches, comes out having a very imperfect knowledge of the geography of the cavern, and a totally inadequate idea of its beauties. I well remember how little I was impressed by my first visit, under these conditions, many years ago. The weak illumination seemed to reveal only the proportions of some rather large cellars, pervaded by oily pools, into which the contents of the can were poured and set on fire, producing an unearthly glare through the darkness and the waters; and a number of dingy and unconvincing natural effigies, black with the accumulation of soot. Our exploring party in March 1903 saw these things under an illumination such as had never been kindled there before, and I for one was quite unprepared for the revelation of brilliance and spaciousness and beauty that we were to witness.

"Wokey Hole," says Bishop Percy, "has given birth to as many wild, fanciful stories as the Sybil's (sic) Cave in Italy. Through a very narrow entrance it opens into a large vault, the roof whereof, either on account of its height or the thickness of the gloom, cannot be discovered by the light of torches. It goes winding a great way underground, is crost by a stream of very cold water, and is all horrid with broken pieces of rock: many of these are evident petrifactions, which, on account of their singular forms, have given rise to the fables alluded to in this poem," the story, that is, of the blear-eyed hag who was turned into stone. This quaint description is true in every particular. The first cavern, or the "Witch's Kitchen," has a weird similitude to Gothic architecture. Arch springs from arch up to the lofty summit, and the walls and vaulting are full of canopied recesses, with wild foliations of glistening calcite wreathed from niche to niche.

Below us, as we enter, a broad deep pool stretches away into darkness. Could we follow the gently moving current in a boat, we should enter another great vault, whose existence the ordinary visitor never suspects. There, in a small passage beyond the water, Mr. Balch discovered human remains. Whilst we peered into the gloom, the limelight was burning up, and now it flashed across the cavern to where the black scowling head of the Witch overshadows terraces, basins, and wild imageries of spectral stalagmite.

"A glow! a gleam!
A broader beam
Startles those realms of endless night,
While bats whirl round on slanting wing,
Astonished at this awful thing.
The rocky roof's reflected rays
Are caught up in the waterways,
And every jewelled stalactite
Is bathed in that stupendous light,
One moment only; then the caves
Are plunged again in Stygian waves;
The fairy dream has passed away
And night resumes her ancient sway."

The Vicar of Whiteparish, near Salisbury, wrote these expressive lines after seeing Wookey Hole lighted up with magnesium. Our beam of light was less transitory, and gave us ample leisure to contemplate the glories of this magnificent chamber. Its walls for the most part are coloured a rich red, which absorbs light readily and makes photography a slow business. The first exposure took half an hour. Against the warm red, the pearly streaks of stalactite and stalagmite shine in exquisite relief. There is a superb mass of stalactite near the Witch; to say truth, the eye is confounded by the wild grouping of fantastic piles of dripstone around that uncouth head; the colours of the rocks and the flashing crystallisations are reflected in the pellucid water, and confused again with our glimpses of the river-bed, smitten by the moving shaft of light. On the nearer side of the cave, where a narrow arch leads into an incrusted grotto, a gentle stream has deposited a fairy-like series of fonts and stoups, ending in a pure white sheet of dripstone, over which the water murmurs. The surface of all these fabrications is diapered over with a network of delicate pearly ridges; so that here you see a mass, as it were, of polished brain coral, and there madrepores and alcyonaria, where the deposits have continued their growth under water. Some of these efflorescences are like petrified filaments of water weed. The foul scurf and soot that covers the Witch's cooking apparatus and other accessories would, doubtless, disappear under a fresh deposit of pristine white, would the guides but cease for a twelvemonth to drench them in benzoline, for the delectation of such as love conundrums in stone. Still, these things are but a small part of the scenery, when all is lighted up as we were able to light it. Our work done, a Bengal fire was set off, and the glimpses it gave us along the waterway to the inaccessible chamber beyond added vastness and mystery to the scene.

STALACTITE TERRACE, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by H. E. Balch.

GREAT RIVER CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by Dawkes & Partridge, Wells.

The next chamber is a loftier vault, and the arching is more decidedly Gothic in its suggestiveness. Two low arches at either side form the portals, far above which a series of pointed arches spring to a height of 70 feet, their summits converging in a polygonal cleft, like the lantern of some cathedral dome. Then we make our way across the sandbanks, between the pools, into the largest chamber of all, with a roof of enormous span, whose breadth dwarfs its height, arching over the sleeping river and the broad slopes of sand, whereon grotesque Limestone monoliths take the likeness of prehistoric monsters sleeping by the waterside. Through the clear water we can discern a submerged arch communicating with more distant caverns. There is a tradition, coming down from the mediÆval historians, that unfathomable lakes lie behind the barrier. This is probably true in so far as it points to the existence of enormous reservoirs of water beyond the accessible parts of Wookey Hole, the theory being confirmed by the behaviour of the silt at flood time. Were the hatches belonging to the paper-mill opened, and the water lowered a few feet, an attempt might be made to solve these problems. Mr. Balch did, in fact, at a time when the water was partially lowered, make his way into two unexplored chambers, fed by tunnels submerged a foot or so below the surface.

SECOND GREAT CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by Dawkes & Partridge, Wells.

ENTRANCE OF THIRD CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by Dawkes & Partridge, Wells.

The older and the newer caves and passages of Wookey Hole lie at five levels, one above the other like five storeys, the topmost of all representing the oldest channel of the subterranean Axe, which has in the course of ages forsaken first one and then the other, boring fresh passages in the Conglomerate. Of these five storeys, one alone, the nethermost, is known to the uninitiated visitor. Portions of the other four had been explored from time to time by Mr. Balch, who in 1903 made such discoveries of unknown continuations as fill us with hopes of penetrating deeply into the mysterious region beyond. Climbing into the Upper Series from a spot near the threshold of the Witch's Kitchen, we made our way eastward over dry rocks, and came speedily to the junction with another passage from nearer the cave mouth. Only a thin leaf of rock separates the two, for it is characteristic of all these upper passages that they run almost parallel to each other whilst rising to other levels. Altogether, we doubled back on our original direction three or four times, creeping through holes in the walls partitioning the corridors, and ascending to the top of several lofty bridges, formed by fragments that have fallen from roof and walls and wedged themselves securely. The construction of these bridges is often marvellous to see. In one case a number of rocks form an irregular arch, at the top of which a keystone wedges the whole cluster together. Obviously they must have fallen and come together practically at the same instant. This was what happened hard by with two great boulders that fell down the rift and caught each other in mid-air. Another impressive natural structure is known to explorers of Wookey Hole as the Spur and the Wedge. The huge horizontal peak of Limestone projecting into the chasm brings to mind a famous passage in Mr. Rider Haggard's She. This spot was the scene of a droll adventure that befell one of my companions years ago. With several other boys, he wandered into these passages, when suddenly the one candle they had with them went out. A boy had been commissioned to bring a supply of matches, but it was ascertained that he had only one left, which on being struck promptly went out. In this emergency, the lads could do nothing but sit still until help arrived. They had no food, and in trying to feel the time, they broke the hands of the only watch. They computed that they had been in durance three days when the rescue party reached the spot, but the protracted and hungry period of waiting turned out to be only eight hours. Their resting-place was the flat back of the pinnacle, with a 60-foot drop on one side and jagged rocks on the other.

In two places in these galleries there are fine displays of stalagmite on the wall, in the form of corrugated sheets, the ridges of which, stained red with ferrous deposits, hang straight down like a series of organ pipes. The walls glisten here and there with minute crystals. But the most striking sight is where the Dolomitic Conglomerate, of which the walls are composed, appears in clean-cut sections. One of these, which has been successfully photographed, shows the differently coloured pebbles, chiefly Mountain Limestone with a few of Old Red Sandstone, embedded in the matrix, and surrounded with distinct layers of cement, all as brilliantly defined as the concentric rings of an agate. Hard by is a corner where Mr. Balch discovered the bones of a man; they were mineralised, but it was impossible to tell their period, or even whether they represented an interment, or were merely the remains of some wanderer from his tribe who had perished in this forlorn spot.

Sleeping bats hung from many a coign, and would not be awakened even when lifted down. Big cave spiders crawled over the walls in the parts adjoining the open air, where the breeze found its way in, although we could not see through the narrowing crevices. Here and there the cocoons of the spiders hung from the roof in white, woolly balls. At the farthest point reached was a settlement of jackdaws, with a number of untidy-looking nests, and there we could hear a thrush singing in the trees outside; for we were close to the main cliff, and the river was flowing out beneath our feet, under a great thickness of rock.

STALACTITE GROTTO: NEW CHAMBERS, WOOKEY HOLE CAVE.

Photo by H. E. Balch.

STALACTITE GROTTO, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by Claude Blee.

By the natural falling in of the roof, the first great chamber of Wookey has broken through into the galleries above, and certain passages of the Upper Series now open high up in the vault of the Witch's Kitchen. One of these openings has been known for years; another, which we reconnoitred carefully in March 1903, has now had its barrier of cave earth cut through, with the result that a group of stalactite chambers of wonderful beauty has been disclosed, with untold possibilities of further advance. Boxing Day 1903 was spent in an exploration of these new chambers. Climbing on my shoulders, Mr. Balch got hand-hold in a chink of the Limestone, and pulled himself up 10 feet. Here a stalagmite peg held the rope ladder whilst we clambered after, entering a cross gallery that gives access by another short scramble to the loveliest of the new grottoes. When the discovery was made, Mr. Balch and his assistants had to keep watch and ward day and night, until a door had been fitted up, and every hole and crevice securely blocked; for the entire village was quickly on the scene, and irretrievable damage might have been committed.

The grotto is irregular in shape, and the incrustations are disposed without order or system. From every nook and corner in the superimpending rocks bundles of stalactite spears are thrust; bosses and pillars spring from the floor, and sometimes meet the descending shafts. Of all these frail pillars, the finest, rising on the very edge of the rift we had ascended, seems to support the whole ponderous roof, like the fragile column left by a dexterous architect, to cheat the eye, in some cathedral vestibule. Certain of these hanging shafts are shaped like the barbed head of a spear, a slanting stalactite having intercepted and coalesced with the dripping calcite from an inch or two away. A creamy, brownish yellow, with a golden lustre like that of amber, is the prevailing tint; but, here and there, plaques of dazzling white shine out against the burning magnesium.

Crawling in and out among the stalagmite pedestals, grievously afraid of injuring the diaphanous fabric, we emerged in a very low chamber of great area, right across which a grille of translucent rods, each a foot high and ranged in regular line, fills the narrow space between roof and floor. This extraordinary and strangely beautiful railing is some 30 feet long, and only in one spot is it possible, by dint of careful wriggling, to pass between the rods into the farther parts of the chamber. Mr. Balch entreated me not to attempt this. When he tried it, a fortnight ago, he had indeed got through to the series of caves beyond, but, in returning, a projection had caught him at the lowest spot, where the chamber is only nine inches high, and he had struggled hard for twenty minutes before he could move an inch. Two of us, notwithstanding this advice, ventured through. After draining off a pool of water that was held back by a thin rim of dripstone, we traversed the low chamber and a short tunnel beyond, climbed a vertical cleft, and entered another low chamber of immense length and breadth, whose various extensions we explored until the accumulated deposits of boulders and cave earth stopped our advance for the time being. In returning through the tunnel and the low chamber with the grille, we tried successfully to dive under the archway and wriggle into the opening head foremost, in spite of two opposing stumps of stalagmite. By these tactics we escaped the worst of the squeeze.

STALACTITE PILLARS, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by Claude Blee.

NEW STALACTITE GROTTO, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth.

Whilst engaged in this excursion, we had heard the sound of hammering somewhere away in the heart of the rock. It was our three friends attempting to break into a promising gallery, which ought to cross the vestibule of the main cavern and connect the two groups of upper caves. We were not long in joining them; and now with pick, hammer, and crowbar we attacked the barrier in force. The chief obstacle was a great flat rock standing on end across the unexplored opening, and propped up by a heap of boulders, which we gradually smashed up or removed to one side. Still the big fellow would not budge, and we had to sap his foundations by degrees. Yet this huge rock was but a fragment that had fallen from the edge of a vast and threatening leaf of rock, which now hung over our heads like a monstrous guillotine. The upper caves are waterless, and it soon became desirable to send one of our number to fetch us a drink. Presently we heard a plaintive cry from the distance: his candle had gone out, and he had forgotten the matches. Going to the rescue, I found him groping about on a shelf of rock, 30 feet from the floor, hard by the Spur and Wedge; he had lost his bearings altogether. On his return, we made another onslaught upon our rocky adversary, the five of us sitting on his shoulder and pushing against the wall, whilst our leader waxed grimly facetious as to what would happen to us if the shock brought down the guillotine. Slowly and painfully we tilted the mass of rock over, but only a few inches, leaving just room enough for a thin man to crawl behind. Squirming eagerly into the opening, I looked under, and was disappointed to see that, if wide, it was still heaped right to the crown of the arch by the rubbish flung there long ago by the river. Nevertheless, Mr. Balch was not dissatisfied. Though parts of these ancient waterways are choked with dÉbris, it is unlikely, nay impossible, that the main channels should not remain open. Our day's work had taken us on another stage in our slow journey. The labour of removing the new obstacle will be considerable, but the result is sure.

In 1904 we had the pleasure of escorting that veteran speleologist, Monsieur E. A. Martel, through the old and the new caves at Wookey Hole. About the same time efforts were made anew to force a way into unexplored territory, with not uninteresting results. Many hours were spent one day by three of us in a hole that we had discovered just within the doorway of the cavern, a thing that had most unaccountably escaped observation hitherto, though right under our noses. The opening pointed in the direction of the lower cave mouth, where the Axe comes out; but it certainly did not look very promising. Crawling in, we found ourselves in a steeply descending passage, almost completely choked by stones and cave earth. But at the end of the first portion it was noticed that the floor dropped suddenly, indicating a chamber or gallery below. An afternoon was spent in the laborious task of shifting rocks, small stones, and earth, and passing up the fragments, great and small, from hand to hand, until they could be placed in safe positions near the mouth of the hole. Eventually, an ancient channel through the solid rock was disclosed, and at the end of 60 feet or so a broad low chamber appeared, floored with rocks and earth, and roofed in with solid rock at a height of 12 or 14 inches. Pushing on, the leader speedily found he was jammed between floor and ceiling, and could go no farther without more engineering; but an elder wand was procured, a candle tied to the end of it, and this rough-and-ready torch being pushed forward, it was possible to see some 35 feet ahead into the low chamber, in the depths of which a row of spiky stalactites stretched across like an alabaster grating.

To explore this chamber thoroughly, it will be necessary to hollow out a passage in the soft floor. In all likelihood, it crosses the present river-course at a level only a few feet higher. Quantities of pottery, bones, teeth, and fragments of charcoal were found in digging out the obstacles. It seems most probable that the hole was stopped up by human agency in prehistoric ages; perhaps it was a place of sepulture. The obstacles were carefully wedged together, and their removal caused much difficulty. It is not pleasant to lie on one's back in a hole, whose roof is only a few inches above one's face, and have a block of Limestone rolled from end to end of one's frame, without allowance for projections in either. In all several tons of material were shifted and carried out of the way. Much of the pottery had designs of a primitive character worked on the surface; the more elaborate was Romano-British. Considerable sections of amphorÆ and other vessels have since been pieced together.

THE GRILLE: NEW CHAMBERS, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth.

THE SOURCE OF THE AXE, WOOKEY HOLE.

Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth.

Next day I made a curious find at a point farther in. Where the path from the entrance rises over a big accumulation of rocks, just before it reaches the first great chamber, a hole in the floor had been noticed. It had not been explored, but was waiting for someone capable of standing an exceptionally hard squeeze. The depth being uncertain, I had a rope tied on, and after a brief struggle managed to get through the first hole, into a crooked passage of no great length, which brought me down to a small bell chamber. This had simply been produced by the piling up of huge quantities of rocks and stones on the floor of the original cavern, the whole structure having since become thoroughly cemented and solidified by the growth of stalagmite. There were many teeth lying about, but the most interesting object was a wooden bowl, slightly flattened out, and resembling the top of a man's skull in shape and size. It felt soft, like a piece of cork, but was perfectly sound. What its age would be one could not tell within a century or two. It is now in the possession of Mr. Troup of Wells.

E. A. B.

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