Reservoir Hole is a cave in

Cheddar Gorge Cheddar Gorge is a limestone gorge in the Mendip Hills, near the village of Cheddar, Somerset, England. The gorge is the site of the Cheddar show caves, where Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, Cheddar Man, estimated to be 9,000 years ...

in Somerset, southwest England. It contains what is believed to be the largest chamber yet found under the

Mendip Hills The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) 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 ...

. The cave was first dug out in 1951 by members of Wessex Cave Club, and further progress was made in 1965 when " Moonmilk Chamber" was reached with the use of blasting. "Grand Gallery" was discovered in 1969, "Topless

Aven Aven or AVEN may refer to: * Asexual Visibility and Education Network, an Internet-based community to promote awareness of asexual orientation * Aven, Papua New Guinea, a village in Morobe Province *Aven (river) in Brittany, France * Aven, a ficti ...

" in 1970 and "Golgotha Rift" in 1973. In September 2012, after four years' work clearing a long passage, a group of diggers broke into a new chamber which was found to be high and long. Prior to the discovery, the largest void under the Mendip Hills was thought to be "Main Chamber" in

GB Cave GB Cave is a cave between Charterhouse and Shipham in the limestone of the Mendip Hills, in Somerset, England. The cave was first entered on 19 November 1939, after ten months of digging, by the University of Bristol Spelæological Society, and ...

, which is high. Before the find in 2012, the cave was already noted for a number of fine formations, and the newly discovered chamber, which has been named “The Frozen Deep”, contains pure-white pillars tall, as well as many stalagmites and

stalactites A stalactite (, ; from the Greek 'stalaktos' ('dripping') via ''stalassein'' ('to drip') is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble an ...

. The possibility of a connection between Reservoir Hole and Gough's Cave, one of the

show cave A show cave—also called tourist cave, public cave, and, in the United States, commercial cave—is a cave which has been made accessible to the public for guided visits. Definition A show cave is a cave that has been made accessible to ...

s in Cheddar Gorge, has been raised, as the two caves are in close proximity. The stream in Reservoir Hole emerges only a short distance down Cheddar Gorge.

References

External links

* (not yet updated for the newly discovered chamber) * Geograph
photographs
of parts of the cave known prior to 2012 discovery {{Mendip Hills Caves of the Mendip Hills Limestone caves Cheddar, Somerset

See also

References

External links