Mossdale Caverns is a

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

system in the

Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales is an upland area of the Pennines in the Historic counties of England, historic county of Yorkshire, England, most of it in the Yorkshire Dales National Park created in 1954. The Dales comprise river valleys and the hills ri ...

, England. It is about north of

Grassington Grassington is a market town and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 1,126. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is situated in Wharfedale ...

, and east of

Conistone Conistone is a small village in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England. It lies north of Grassington, south of Kettlewell and north of Skipton beside the River Wharfe, in Upper Wharfedale. History Conistone is mentioned in the D ...

, where Mossdale Beck sinks at the base of Mossdale Scar. It lies at an altitude of on the eastern flank of

Wharfedale Wharfedale ( ) is the valley of the upper parts of the River Wharfe and one of the Yorkshire Dales. It is situated within the districts of Craven and Harrogate in North Yorkshire, and the cities of Leeds and Bradford in West Yorkshire. It is ...

, and extends south-east beneath Grassington Moor. The cave system is formed within the Middle Limestone of the

Yoredale Series The Yoredale Series, in geology, is a now obsolete term for a local phase of the Carboniferous rocks of the north of England, ranging in age from the Asbian Substage to the Yeadonian Substage. The term Yoredale Group is nowadays applied to the ...

. The large stream (average flow 100 litres/second) has been shown by dye testing to resurge at Black Keld, some to the WNW lower.

Speleology

Eli Simpson, a founder of the

British Speleological Association British Speleological Association (BSA) was founded by Eli Simpson and others in 1935. It was instrumental in the discovery of Lancaster Hole and other caves. In 1973, it merged with the Cave Research Group of Great Britain to form the British Cav ...

, had become convinced there was a large undiscovered caving system in the area and devoted much of his time to finding it. Simpson later enlisted the help of fellow B.S.A. member Bob Leakey, who recruited a team of female co-workers from Yeadon aircraft factory to help the exploration of Mossdale Scar. (The

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

had created a local shortage of able bodied males) On 31 May 1941, while searching for a fallen tobacco pipe, Leakey found an entrance which led to the subsequent

Exploration Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

of Mossdale Caverns.
It is a very challenging cave system prone to flooding, with many passages involving long wet crawls while other sections can be neck-deep in water; many of Leakey's explorations were conducted solo as few contemporaries had the necessary endurance. The end was finally reached again in 1964 by Mike Boon and

Pete Livesey Pete Livesey (12 December 1943 to 26 February 1998), was an English rock climber who raised the standard of technical difficulty in traditional climbing in Britain during the early to mid-1970s. Livesey was renowned for the intensity and competi ...

. A return trip to the far end takes between eight and ten hours. Legal permission to enter the caves is no longer granted because of the tragedy that occurred in 1967, but exploration does still take place on an unofficial basis. It is thought that the cave system may hold the key to breaking into the Great Scar Limestone and the extensive cave that exists behind

Black Keld Black is a color which results from the absence or complete Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of visible spectrum, visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or fi ...

1967 tragedy

The cave system is notorious amongst cavers in the United Kingdom for a tragedy that occurred on 24 June 1967. On that day, ten cavers entered the system. Three hours later, four members of the party decided not to continue and exited the cave system. One of the four - Morag Forbes - returned to the entrance shortly afterwards, only to find it completely submerged due to recent rainfall having swollen Mossdale Beck. Realising immediately that the six cavers who remained inside the cave system were in danger, she ran across the

moor Moor or Moors may refer to: Nature and ecology * Moorland, a habitat characterized by low-growing vegetation and acidic soils. Ethnic and religious groups * Moors, Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during ...

to raise the alarm.

Cave rescue Cave rescue is a highly specialized field of wilderness rescue in which injured, trapped or lost cave explorers are medically treated and extracted from various cave environments. Cave rescue borrows elements from firefighting, confined space res ...

teams arrived at the scene, but the high water levels prevented access to the cave. The waters of Mossdale Beck had to be diverted away from the cave entrance by digging a trench. Even then the rescue operation could not be started because of the high water levels inside. It was not until the following day that entry was possible. The cave rescue teams found the bodies of five of the cavers in the Far Marathon Crawls, and Bob Leakey led a search party to a location where he believed the sixth might have survived, but without success. The sixth body was located the following day. The bodies were left

in situ ''In situ'' (; often not italicized in English) is a Latin phrase that translates literally to "on site" or "in position." It can mean "locally", "on site", "on the premises", or "in place" to describe where an event takes place and is used in ...

. The

coroner A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into Manner of death, the manner or cause of death, and to investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...

decided to seal the cave, and concrete was poured down the only safe entrance. This was later re-opened and in 1971, with the agreement of their families, the bodies were buried by their colleagues from the ULSA in "Mud Caverns", a chamber at the far end of the system. This is to date the most deadly incident in British caving. A memorial plaque is affixed to the cliff above the entrance. On the moors above is a memorial

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

. The plaque on the cairn reads: ''Mossdale memorial cairn – over the place in the cave where the bodies were found''. There is a rock climbing route at Gordale Scar called "Mossdale Trip" (E6 6b), named by Pete Livesey in remembrance of the tragedy.

References

External links

Googlemap showing location of the cave entrancePictures of the memorial cairnAn interview
on the

British Cave Research Association The British Cave Research Association (BCRA) is a speleological organisation in the United Kingdom. Its object is to promote the study of caves and associated phenomena, and it attains this by supporting cave and karst research, encouraging orig ...

library website with Bob Leakey where he discusses his original Mossdale Caverns explorations]
What lies beneath - The Mossdale caving disaster
Roy Kershaw, ''The Independent Magazine'', 15 March 2008, pp. 29–32
An interview with Jack Pickup about the tragedy
on the

library website
In Living memory 1967 Mossdale caverns Tragedy (on the BBC)
Limestone caves Wild caves 1967 disasters in the United Kingdom 1967 in England Caves of North Yorkshire Caving incidents and rescues

Speleology

1967 tragedy

References

Further reading

External links