Yew Cogar Hole was greatly extended in the early 1970s by CPC members. However the cave was known long before that. (It features in various editions of Pennine Underground, for example). Does anyone know which club first explored the cave and / or when? Thanks.

Sorry, I meant to add that if anyone can point me to a reference, that would be especially useful.

Try The Eastern Flank of Fountains Fell by D Brindle in CPC Journal Vol 3 No 6 1966.

He refers to a early work on Darnbrook in the 50s, a 1957 dye test from the Cock Pits to Yew Cogar Rising and a trip/brief description of Yew Cogar Cave. However, he doen't say whether this was new exploration or revisiting previously known cave.

psychocrawler said:

Try The Eastern Flank of Fountains Fell by D Brindle in CPC Journal Vol 3 No 6 1966.

He refers to a early work on Darnbrook in the 50s, a 1957 dye test from the Cock Pits to Yew Cogar Rising and a trip/brief description of Yew Cogar Cave. However, he doen't say whether this was new exploration or revisiting previously known cave.

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It doesn't appear in the 1949 edition of PU, but does appear in the 1953 edition of Britain Underground, which narrows it down a little.

Thank you very much for the contributions above; they're a great deal of help.

In the O.P. I deliberately didn't explain why I was asking the question because I didn't want to influence any answers. A query has arisen about the cave's name, which I'm trying to sort out for the new Northern Caves database.

The existing Northern Caves guide and the Ordnance Survey have Yew Cogar "Cave" but The 1959 edition of P.U. uses Yew Cogar "Hole", as does the article describing the main extensions (CPC Journal 1971) together with the definitive survey of the whole cave (with CPC Journal 1972). I just looked at Psychocrawler's suggested reference (CPC 1966) and note that it also refers to Yew Cogar "Hole".

Langcliffe's narrowing down of the first caving guide reference is also very helpful; Langcliffe, if you have a copy of Britain Underground 1953 to hand, please could you glance at the entry and see how it's specifically named? Thanks.

Pitlamp said:

Langcliffe, if you have a copy of Britain Underground 1953 to hand, please could you glance at the entry and see how it's specifically named? Thanks.

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Yew Cogar HOLE.

Great - thanks Langcliffe!

OK, does anyone know of any earlier reference to this cave (i.e. from before Britain Underground 1953)?

Just to eliminate one possible likely source, I just checked the Yorkshire Ramblers Club journals between 1936 and 1954 and couldn't find any obvious references to Yew Cogar Hole.

(Thanks, separately, to Richard Kavanagh, who kindly sent some useful information directly to me.)