Caving in the United Kingdom

The four major caving areas of the United Kingdom are in North Yorkshire, South Wales, Derbyshire, and Mendips. Minor areas include Devon, North Wales, and Grampian.

One of the oldest established clubs, Yorkshire Ramblers' Club, was founded in 1892.[1]

Probably the first cave diving explorations in the world took place in Wookey Hole Caves in the 1930s using standard diving dress.

Due to the long and active history of caving, almost every entrance with surface access has been fully explored, so the majority of new discoveries take place underground after months and sometimes years of cave digging.

Notable recent discoveries since 1995 include Titan, the largest shaft in Britain, and Ogof Draenen, the second longest cave in Britain.

Many clubs run expeditions abroad, often to particular territories such as Matienzo or Picos.

Information resources

Many clubs hold extensive libraries recording decades of exploration in terms of surveys and logbooks, as well as newsletters, reports and books detailing the history of cave explorations both within their nearby areas and abroad on expeditions. Other information is in the form of extensive personal archives that have been bequeathed to the community.

Some areas also have extensive databases of diagrams and other survey documents for particular areas, such as the Mendip Cave Registry and Archive.[2]

Caving organisations in the UK

There are a number of caving organisations in the UK which include governing bodies, cave rescue teams and caving clubs.

  • Caving organisations in the United Kingdom

Periodicals

  • Descent (bimonthly caving magazine)
  • Speleology (formerly Caves and Caving) the magazine of the BCRA.
  • Some clubs publish journals which include details of their new explorations.

Libraries

The following libraries are open to club members, some of which are also open to non-members.

Surveys

Cave surveys have historically been kept by the person who drew them (with the measurement data often lost), or deposited in a club library. They are seldom published (except in reduced form in a guidebook) and can be difficult to obtain because there is no central catalogue listing who holds what.

In about 2012 a central repository for survey data and drawn-up surveys was set up by the BCA and now contains a significant amount of UK (and some foreign, from expeditions) survey data.[4] There are also projects which are attempting to assemble on-line maps and catalogues from repositories of surveys by overlaying them on satellite imagery:

  • cavemaps.org – Yorkshire based
  • BDCC Mendip map – Bracknell District Caving Club map

Guidebooks

The most widely referenced guidebooks for caving the UK are:

  • Northern Caves in three volumes, most recent complete edition published 1998, new volume for The Three Counties System and the North-West published 2017
  • Mendip Underground – A Caver's Guide, published 2013
  • Caves of the Peak District, published December 2010
  • The Caves of South Wales, published 1995
  • Selected Caves of Britain and Ireland, published 1997

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The Club". Yorkshire Rambler's Club Website. YRC Committee. Retrieved 10 January 2014.
  2. ↑ "History". Mendip Cave Registry and Archive. Retrieved 29 December 2015.
  3. ↑ "British Caving Library". British Cave Research Association. Retrieved 29 December 2015.
  4. ↑ "Cave Registry Data Archive". British Caving Association. Retrieved 24 February 2017.
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