Cheddar Gorge, including the caves and other attractions, has become a tourist destination. In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, following its appearance on the television programme Seven Natural Wonders (2005), Cheddar Gorge was named as the second greatest natural wonder in Britain, surpassed only by Dan yr Ogof caves.[4] The gorge attracts about 500,000 visitors per year.[5]
Geology
Aerial photograph, showing the cliff faces to the south (right hand side of picture) and the slopes to the north
Cheddar is a gorge lying on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills.[6] The maximum depth of the gorge is 137m (449ft),[7][8] with a near-vertical cliff-face to the south, and steep grassy slopes to the north. The B3135 road runs along the bottom of the gorge.
The area is underlain by Black Rock slate, Burrington Oolite and Clifton Down Limestone of the CarboniferousLimestone Series, which contain ooliths and fossil debris, on top of Old Red Sandstone and by dolomiticconglomerate of the Keuper. Evidence for Variscan orogeny is seen in the sheared rock and cleaved shales. In many places weathering of these strata has resulted in the formation of immature calcareous soils.[3]
The gorge was formed by meltwater floods during the cold periglacial periods which have occurred over the last 1.2million years. During the ice ages, permafrost blocked the caves with ice and frozen mud and made the limestone impermeable. When this melted during the summers, water was forced to flow on the surface, and carved out the gorge.[9] During warmer periods, the water flowed underground through the permeable limestone, creating the caves and leaving the gorge dry, so that today much of the gorge has no river until the underground Cheddar Yeo river emerges in the lower part from Gough's Cave. The river is used by Bristol Water, who maintain a series of dams and ponds which supply the nearby Cheddar Reservoir,[10][11] via a 137-centimetre (54in) diameter pipe that takes water just upstream of the Rotary Club Sensory Garden, a public park in the gorge opposite Jacob's Ladder.
The gorge is susceptible to flooding. In the Chew Stoke flood of 1968, the flow of water washed large boulders down the gorge, damaging the cafe and entrance to Gough's Cave[12] and washing away cars.[13] In the cave itself the flooding lasted for three days.[14] In 2012 the B3135, the road through the gorge, was closed for several weeks following damage to the road surface during extensive flooding.[15][16]
Ownership
The south side of the gorge is owned and administered by the Marquess of Bath's Longleat Estate. The cliffs on the north side of the gorge are owned by The National Trust.[17] Every year, both of the gorge's owners contribute funds towards the clearance of scrub, bush and trees from the area.
Most of the commercial visitor activity in the gorge is on the Longleat-owned south side, including access to the two main commercial show caves and the visitor centre, which is operated by Longleat-owned company Cheddar Gorge and Caves Ltd under director Hugh Cornwell[citation needed]. Because visitors to the show caves have decreased from 400,000 a year in the 1980s to 150,000 in 2013, Ceawlin Thynn, Viscount Weymouth, who runs the Longleat estate on behalf of the family trust, proposed the installation of a 600-metre (2,000ft) 18-gondola cable car at an estimated cost of £10m, which would take visitors from the entrance area to the caves directly to the top of the southside cliffs. The National Trust opposed the proposed development, stating that it would spoil the view and cheapen the experience, creating a "fairground ride" that would make the area feel more like an amusement park. Planning permission was planned in Spring 2014, which would have meant that operations would start in Spring 2016.[18] In 2015 the financial feasibility was still being investigated.[19]
The gorge is also an important site for whitebeams and in 2009 a survey was carried out by botanists from the Welsh National Herbarium as part of a nationwide survey of whitebeams. Among the eight species identified were three new species previously unknown to science. Nineteen specimens with oval-shaped leaves were named the "Cheddar whitebeam", Sorbus cheddarensis, fifteen specimens with roundish leaves and greyish brown bark were named the "Twin Cliffs whitebeam", Sorbus eminentoides, and thirteen with long, narrow leaves were named "Gough’s Rock whitebeam", Sorbus rupicoloides.[25][26] The Cheddar whitebeam, which has evolved as a cross between the common whitebeam and the grey-leaved whitebeam, is unique to the gorge, but its survival is threatened by the goats that were introduced specifically to keep down the growth of new trees and encourage the proliferation of rare plant species such as the Cheddar pink. Cuttings have been taken from the trees to be grafted and grown on at the Welsh National Herbarium.[27]
Longleat Estate has fenced off a large part of its land and has introduced goats, as part of a programme to encourage the biodiversity of the area; the goats were intended to replace the sheep that grazed in the gorge until the 1970s.[28] The National Trust announced in March 2007 that it plans to release a flock of sheep on its side of the gorge for the same purpose, but will first consult local residents and interested parties on whether to fence off the gorge or introduce cattle grids to prevent the sheep from straying. There is already a small flock of feral Soay sheep in the gorge.
The two main caves open to the public are on the southside of the Gorge, owned by Longleat Estate. The extensive Gough's Cave and the smaller Cox's Cave are both named after their respective discoverers. Both are known for their geology, and it has been suggested that the caves were used for maturing cheese in prehistoric times.[29]
Gough's cave, which was discovered in 1903,[30] leads around 400m (437yd) into the rock-face, and contains a variety of large rock chambers and formations. Cox's Cave, discovered in 1837,[31] is smaller but contains many intricate formations. In 2016 Cox's cave was turned into "Dreamhunters", a multimedia walk-through experience with theatrical lighting and video projection.[32]
The Gorge's many caves are home to colonies of Greater and Lesser horseshoe bats.[33]
In 1999, the Channel 4 television programme Time Team investigated Cooper's Hole in an attempt to find evidence of Palaeolithic human activity.[34]
These caves are the inspirations for the glittering caves of Aglarond situated in the White Mountains behind Helm's Deep in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Two Towers, which was later founded as a new kingdom of Durin's Folk by Gimli after the War of the Ring.[35]
Several of the caves have been scheduled as ancient monuments as nationally important archaeological sites including: Gough's Old Cave,[36] Great Oone's Hole,[37] Saye's Hole,[38] Soldier's Hole[39] and Sun Hole.[40]
Recreational use
Exposed limestone cliffs above visitor centre and restaurant
Cliff Road (B3135), which runs through the Gorge, offers a popular climb for bicyclists and has a maximum gradient of 16%.[41] The ascent featured in stage 6 of the 2011 Tour of Britain.[42]
There are about 590graded rock climbing routes on the South side of the gorge,[43] which are generally open to climbers between 1 October and 15 March each year.[44] The North side of the gorge has about 380 climbing routes and the land is predominantly owned by the National Trust and mapped as Open Access land which give a right of access for climbers all year.[45] Each of the routes is named and included in the British Mountaineering Council guidebook. Although the majority of the climbs are "trad" or "traditional", which means that the leader places protection as they go up, there are also some "sport" routes where bolts are left in place. Climber Chris Bonington was the first to scale the Coronation Street route in 1965.[46]
Visitors to the gorge have experienced a number of accidents.[47][48] Rescue services, including local mountain rescue and cave rescue groups, frequently use the gorge to stage exercises. It is also used as a training location for military rescue helicopter pilots.
The Cheddar Man Museum of Prehistory inspired by the discovery of ancient hominids such as Cheddar Man contains information about the caves and their palaeontological development. Exhibits include original flint tools and human remains excavated from the caves. The Visitors' Centre and Restaurant is an important Modernist design by Geoffrey Jellicoe, dating from 1934.[49] Jellicoe was commissioned by the fifth Marquess of Bath, and created a two-block structure with a rooftop pool. He drew inspiration from International Modernist buildings, including the De La Warr Pavilion. The integrity of the building has been greatly compromised. In the 1960s, the glass roof to the restaurant, and the pool set above it, were removed to increase seating capacity, and it has since been re-clad in poor quality materials. Michael Spens, in his comprehensive study, The Complete Landscape Designs and Gardens of Geoffrey Jellicoe, writes that it is "now barely recognizable as a pioneer construction of the modern period".[50]
There is a clifftop walk from Jacob's Ladder along the crest of the gorge and back to the road, with views of the gorge. A caving experience is offered within Gough's Cave. There is a path of 274steps, built up the side of the gorge, known as Jacob's Ladder after the Biblical description of a ladder to the heavens. A watchtower at the top provides a 360–degree view of the entire area and village. An open-top bus tour operates during the summer. Cheddar cheese is made in the lower part of the gorge.[citation needed]
In 1916, a location scene for the movie Just a Girl was filmed at Cheddar Gorge. The heroine, played by Daisy Burrell, had to fire a revolver while riding a pony, which bolted. Burrell clung on grimly, and filming had to be abandoned for the rest of the morning.[51]
Cheddar is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Somerset. It is situated on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, 9 miles (14 km) north-west of Wells, 11 miles (18 km) south-east of Weston-super-Mare and 18 miles (29 km) south-west of Bristol. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Nyland and Bradley Cross. The parish had a population of 5,755 in 2011 and an acreage of 8,592 acres (3,477 ha) as of 1961.
Wookey Hole Caves are a series of limestone caverns, a show cave and tourist attraction in the village of Wookey Hole on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills near Wells in Somerset, England. The River Axe flows through the cave. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for both biological and geological reasons. Wookey Hole cave is a "solutional cave", one that is formed by a process of weathering in which the natural acid in groundwater dissolves the rocks. Some water originates as rain that flows into streams on impervious rocks on the plateau before sinking at the limestone boundary into cave systems such as Swildon's Hole, Eastwater Cavern and St Cuthbert's Swallet; the rest is rain that percolates directly through the limestone. The temperature in the caves is a constant 11 °C (52 °F).
The Mendip Hills 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 overlook the Somerset Levels to the south and the Chew Valley and other tributaries of the Avon to the north. The highest point, at 325 metres above sea level, is Beacon Batch which is the summit area atop Black Down. The hills gave their name to the former local government district of Mendip, which administered most of the local area until April 2023. The higher, western part of the hills, covering 198 km2 (76 sq mi) has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), which gives it a level of protection comparable to a national park.
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.
Ebbor Gorge is a limestone gorge in Somerset, England, designated and notified in 1952 as a 63.5-hectare (157-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Mendip Hills. It was donated to the National Trust in 1967 and is now managed by Natural England as a national nature reserve.
Somerset is a rural county in the southwest of England, covering 4,171 square kilometres (1,610 sq mi). It is bounded on the north-west by the Bristol Channel, on the north by Bristol and Gloucestershire, on the north-east by Wiltshire, on the south-east by Dorset, and on the south west and west by Devon. It has broad central plains with several ranges of low hills. The landscape divides into four main geological sections from the Silurian through the Devonian and Carboniferous to the Permian which influence the landscape, together with water-related features.
Crook Peak to Shute Shelve Hill is a 332.2 hectare (820.9 acre) geological and biological Site of Special Scientific Interest near the western end of the Mendip Hills, Somerset. The line of hills runs for approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from west to east and includes: Crook Peak, Compton Hill, Wavering Down, Cross Plain and Shute Shelve Hill. Most of the site is owned by the National Trust, which bought 725 acres (293 ha) in 1985, and much of it has been designated as common land. It was notified as an SSSI by Natural England in 1952.
The Cheddar Complex is a 441.3-hectare (1,090-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest near Cheddar around the Cheddar Gorge and north east to Charterhouse in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England, notified in 1952.
Gough's Cave is located in Cheddar Gorge on the Mendip Hills, in Cheddar, Somerset, England. The cave is 115 m (377 ft) deep and is 3.405 km (2.12 mi) long, and contains a variety of large chambers and rock formations. It contains the Cheddar Yeo, the largest underground river system in Britain.
Charterhouse, also known as Charterhouse-on-Mendip, is a hamlet and former civil parish, now in the parish of Priddy, in the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in the Somerset district, in the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. The area between Charterhouse and Cheddar Gorge including Velvet Bottom and Ubley Warren is covered by the Cheddar Complex Site of Special Scientific Interest. In 1931 the parish had a population of 68.
The caves of the Mendip Hills are formed by the particular geology of the Mendip Hills: large areas of limestone worn away by water makes it a national centre for caving. The hills conceal the largest underground river system in Britain.
GB Cave is a cave between Charterhouse and Shipham in the limestone of the Mendip Hills, in Somerset, England.
The Mendip Way is an 80-kilometre (50 mi) long-distance footpath across the Mendip Hills from Weston-super-Mare to Frome. It is divided into two sections.
The county of Somerset is in South West England, bordered by the Bristol Channel and the counties of Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, and Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south, and Devon to the west. The climate, influenced by its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and the prevailing westerly winds, tends to be mild, damp and windy.
The Cheddar Yeo is a small river in Somerset, England. Beneath the limestone of the Mendip Hills it forms the largest underground river system in Britain. After emerging into Cheddar Gorge it flows through the village of Cheddar, where it has been used in the past to power mills. From the Middle Ages until the 19th century the river had ports for seagoing vessels but is no longer navigable. Some of the water, which is of good quality, is diverted into Cheddar Reservoir to provide drinking water for Bristol.
Libby Houston is an English poet and botanist. The native of North London has published several collections of poetry. Houston, a research associate at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol, has discovered several new species of whitebeam (Sorbus), one of which has been given her name. In addition to membership in several organisations related to botany, Houston is a participant in the Avon Gorge & Downs Wildlife Project. She was the recipient of the H. H. Bloomer medal in 2012. The award from the Linnean Society of London acknowledged her contribution to natural history, in particular, the body of knowledge of whitebeams in Britain, and the flora of Avon Gorge in Bristol, England. In 2018, she was recipient of the Marsh Botany Award, in recognition of lifetime achievement in the field.
Reservoir Hole is a cave in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, southwest England. It contains what is believed to be the largest chamber yet found under the Mendip Hills.
Chew Stoke Flood was a heavy rain event and severe flash flood which occurred on 10 July 1968, affecting Somerset and Southwest England in particular the Chew Valley and some areas of Bristol, notably Bedminster. The River Chew suffered a major flood in 1968 with serious damage to towns and villages along its route, including sweeping away the bridge at Pensford.
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