Alum Pot is a
pothole with a large open shaft at a surface elevation of on the eastern flanks of
Simon Fell,
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...
, England. It connects with nearby
Long Churn Cave and
Diccan Pot. The pot is accessed via a 1-km private track on payment of a small fee from Selside Farm in the hamlet of
Selside in
Ribblesdale
Ribblesdale is one of the Yorkshire Dales in England. It is the dale or upper valley of the River Ribble in North Yorkshire. Towns and villages in Ribblesdale (downstream, from north to south) include Selside, Horton-in-Ribblesdale, Stainf ...
. Alum Pot has variously been known as Allan, Alan, Allen, Hellen and Hell'n.
History
In 1847
John Birkbeck undertook the first partial descent of Alum Pot from Long Churn Cave which did not reach the floor of the shaft. He returned the following year and made a successful descent, when a group of nine men were lowered to the shaft floor in a large bucket winched down by a group of railway workers.
[ Another successful complete descent of Alum Pot took place in 1870, when a group of people were lowered to the floor using a cage and windlass operated by ]navvies
Navvy, a clipping of navigator ( UK) or navigational engineer ( US), is particularly applied to describe the manual labourers working on major civil engineering projects and occasionally (in North America) to refer to mechanical shovels and ea ...
working on the Settle–Carlisle Line
The Settle–Carlisle line (also known as the ''Settle and Carlisle'' (S&C)) is a main railway line in northern England. The route, which crosses the remote, scenic regions of the Yorkshire Dales and the North Pennines, runs between Settle J ...
. In 1932 a 24-strong group of cavers from the Craven Pothole Club made the first passage from Alum Pot to Diccan Pot.
In July 1936 Mabel Binks became the first caving fatality in the Yorkshire Dales when she was hit by a rock falling down the Main Shaft. Evidence from the inquest indicated that it had been thrown down deliberately.
See also
* Caving in the United Kingdom
Recreational caving in the United Kingdom dates back to the mid-19th century. The four major caving areas of the United Kingdom are North Yorkshire, South Wales, Derbyshire, and the Mendips. Minor areas include Devon, North Wales, and the Scottish ...
*List of caves in the United Kingdom
This is an incomplete list of caves in the United Kingdom, including information on the largest and deepest caves in the UK.
Longest, deepest and largest
The longest cave system in the UK is the Three Counties System in the Yorkshire Dales, with ...
References
Sources
*Lowe, G.T. (1903) Alum Pot. Yorkshire Ramblers' Club Journal Volume 2 Number 5: pp. 35–47. Leeds: YRC
External links
Yorkshire Ramblers Club website
{{Authority control
Caves of North Yorkshire