Holwell Cave

Location
Grid Reference: ST 2105 3398

Altitude: 200m

Located in Holwell Quarry, about 500m south of the village of Merridge. Marked as 'cave' on OS 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 maps.

Description
Holwell Cave is a phreatic maze divided by a roomy main passage into a West series and East series. The West series consists of a number of interconnected tubes and rifts mostly crawling with a few memorable squeezes including the Bunghole, until the last 20 years or so the only way into the Lower Series. The Lower Series contains a tiny stream and an inaccessible sump. One can now leave the Lower Series by an alternative route into the Main Passage. Until recently one could exit from the West Series via a tube to the right of the main entrance - the Tradesman's Entrance. Sadly this has been covered by tipping as the quarry has been used for landfill. The Main Passage ends in Andrew Crosse's Chamber the roof of which is studded with aragonite crystals, now blackened by smoke from candles. These formations seem to form on the shale limestone boundary.

The East Series was dug into in the 1960's and consists of a series of crawls squeezes and narrow rifts that link back to a tight entrance slot to the left of the Main Entrance. Concealed within East Series are some nice anthodite formations now damaged. In 1967 an excavated rift exposed a new chamber - Cerberus Chamber named by the original explorers Pete Rose, Nick Chipchase and Peter Glanvill after the club of which they were members. The new chamber had a deep pool at its base and also some more anthodite formations.

In 1968 Peter Glanvill and friends located by digging another cave in the quarry now buried by tipping. This was never full explored.