Trip to Kiln Cave -- 31st Mar 2012

Home Page

Back to Regional Index

Content and images
© WCG 2003-2015

Click images to enlarge

Last Changed: 26/1/2015

E-mail webmaster

Trip to Kiln Cave -- 31st Mar 2012

Group: Paul, Mary, Dave

There are references to this cave in Trevor Ford's book "The limestone and caves of Wales" and also more details on Cris Ebbs excellent "Caves of North Wales" website. Dave had already stuck his head in the entrance and crawled to the rift, but couldn't get along the inlet passage. So this trip was planned to see if the cave ferret could reach the end and take some photos.

We drove up to the ford at Worlds End and managed to park not too far away. We walked back up the road to the old lime kiln and climbed up the scree slope to the cave. There are a few other holes around here, but only one goes any distance.

The entrance leads to a low crawl almost parallel to the cliff face, there is a short passage to the right which ducks under some scaffold bars to a dead end, but a bit further to the left a low passage on the right heads into the hill. This enters the bottom of a rift after about 3m and it is possible to stand up. The rift is about 2-2.5 metres high and consists of large blocks of rock. Facing into the hill there is a is a tight passage on the right about 1 metre off the floor which appears to go on a few metres. Below the passage there is a pool of water which can be seen if a light is shone down the voids.

The passage has a constriction about 2 metres in and Mary managed to get past this with some effort and into a slightly larger area. It is possible to sit up and turn around here. The passage continues, but then ducks under a slab which rests against the side wall of the passage. Looking under the slab shows that the passage ends in various boulders and the slab itself holds up more massive rocks above.

Sadly its probably "game over" at this point as digging and capping here would be very difficult without scaffolding to support the roof. There is a nearby fault which probably accounts for the shattered nature of the rift and passage. The rocks forming the passage walls show scalloping from ancient water flow and this cave has, in the past, acted as a resurgence in very wet weather. The pictures below show the blockage at the end.

A short potter on a dull day. Total trip time about 1 hour.