Big cave at High tor

Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
A Peak District climber friend asked me the following question expecting I would know the answer.  I don't have a clue.  Can anyone answer it.

"Does the big cave next to High Tor gulley go all the way through and up to the top?"
 

AR

Well-known member
I'm guessing High Tor gulley is a climber's name for either Fern or Roman cave; neither are caves but instead deep open stopes. There's a few bits of disconnected workings lower down, the most in-depth publication covering them is John Barnatt and Terry Worthington's work - https://pdmhs.co.uk/MiningHistory/Bulletin%2017-3%20-%20Metal%20Mines%20through%20Time.pdf (be aware this is a 50Mb download)

edit - there's also this short article which I suspect may be describing the "big cave" - https://pdmhs.co.uk/MiningHistory/Bulletin%209-3%20-%20A%20Trial%20Excavation%20on%20High%20Tor%20Rake,%20Matlock.pdf
 

SamT

Moderator
https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/crags/high_tor_derbyshire-119/high_tor_gully-15560

Sounds great.. :LOL:
 
High Tor Gully on the massive cavern-like outcrop of High Tor Rake was a famous climb at the start of the 20th century with the Kyndwr Club. There are contemporary accounts of the climb. It is mentioned in my forthcoming book on the Matlock mines, from which I extract the following:

Nowadays, a rubble slope descends from the base of the fissure into a low passage on top of the Upper Lava. This is silted up after 80 feet although a draught issues from choked workings in the roof. (1)  The Kyndwr Climbing Club president, Mr. E. A. Baker, described in 1902 an early climb in High Tor Rake:
We scrambled down slopes of clay and scree for nearly a hundred feet ? the stones that we shifted in our movements crashing all the while into the black gulf beneath us, whose depth we could not ascertain ? Our efforts to enter the gully at the foot were likewise a failure.(2) 
This suggests that a considerable floor stope then existed. This ?High Tor Gully? was first climbed in 1903 by Joe Puttrell. (3)

1 Picken, John, 1985. A Trial Excavation on High Tor Rake, Matlock. P.D.M.H.S. Bull. Vol. 9 No. 3, pp 197-199.
2 Climbing Club Journal 1905, No. 26 p98.
3 Manchester Guardian 16 Dec 1903 p12.


 
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