Poole's Cavern is situated just under a mile outside of the Derbyshire town of Buxton, on the fringe of the Peak District National Park. During a recent visit to the town I actually stumbled upon this place quite by accident, and since the weather was abysmal for trudging around I decided to pay this place a visit.
It is well sign-posted from the town centre so we decided to follow the brown tourist signs that led us out of the town centre, past the School and through a rather desirable residential District of this picturesque town.
I would describe Poole's Cavern as one of those little Gems of a place I occasionally find when I wander off the beaten track. The only difference here is that this place is no hidden secret, yet despite my many visits to Buxton this is the first time that I was aware that the place existed.
On arriving at the point where the signposts direct you into a small Car Park I was initially somewhat disappointed. From here there is no evidence of any entrance to a Cave and we assumed that it must be hidden away up in the woods
in the background. In fact the entrance to the Cave is tucked away just a very metres away from the Visitors Centre.
There is quite a bit of construction work taking place around here at the moment including a large Portacabin that is taking up a large part of the parking area. We decided to accept the apologies on the sign for "any inconvenience" and headed off to the Visitors Centre.
The Visitors Centre is where you have to part with your money to enter the Cave. Foolishly I thought that it just might have been free, but now that I was here I decided to proceed. The Visitors Centre is quite small but contains lots of information relating to the history of the place.
There is a certain amount of debate regarding how the Cave actually got its name, but there are two possibilities. Some people say that it derives its name from John Pole who was the man that owned this land that the Cave was discovered on. Others say that it was named after a famous local outlaw called William Poole, who is said to have hidden out in this Cave during the fifteenth century.
Poole's Cavern became a popular tourist attraction during Victorian times but long before this time the Cave was used by the Romans and even before that by Prehistoric Man over 2,000 years ago. The Cave itself is over 2 million years old.
Excavations from within the Cave have unearthed over 4,000 different artefacts, many of these dating from Roman times. The first part of the Cave is known as the Roman Chamber due to the large number of Roman related things that have been found here.
The first thing that we discovered on arriving at the Visitors Centre was that it is not possible to wander into the Cave and explore it at your leisure. Instead you have to join a guided tour. These leave every hour during the winter months and every half an hour during the summer, although if there are a sufficient amount of people to make it worthwhile the guide will leave earlier. Our party had 9 people in it of all ages, including 3 Children. We waited for about 20 minutes for the tour to start.
The first thing that you notice when you approach the Cave is that this has quite a large entrance. I have been in Caves of all different shapes and sizes, including ones that I have had to crawl on my hands and knees through, but there is no danger of that here.
The interior of the Cave is dark and damp but it was not cold as I expected it to be. The Victorians installed Gas Lamps along the wall of the Cave to light the way and although some of these are still there they no longer work. Instead our Guide had a torch to light the way.
All along the route the Guide pointed out various things including a pile of human bones which were quite eerie. Apparently these were the remains a prehistoric man that was dug up here a few years ago.
The Guide also explained how the Stalactites and Stalagmites were formed from the Calcium deposits in the drops of water that were constantly dripping. He flashed his torch onto the hand rail and pointed out a new stalagmite that was only a couple of inches tall, evidence that these features are still growing even today.
I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Poole's Cavern although it does work out quite expensive so it is probably the sort of place that you would only ever visit once.
The Cavern is partly accessible by disabled people and wheelchair access into the main Cavern is possible. Part of the current construction work is to improve the facilities for the disabled and this work also includes installing Video Cameras into many of the smaller Caverns where access is not possible.
The admission charges are as below:
Adults - £6.75 Children - £4.00 Concession - £5.50 Family - £20 (2 Adults + up to 3 Children)
Poole's Cavern is open from the 10th February until the 23rd December from 10am until 5pm.
The address is as below:
Poole's Cavern, Green Lane, Buxton, Derbyshire SK17 9DH
NH Hotels, the hotel chain leader in Europe, with more than 300 hotels in 20 countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Enter into our web site and find the best available tariff at all times
Mar 13th, 2007
very helpful by (100%):
