Caves on Flat Holm

rich

New member
Got a trip to Flat Holm planned in a couple of weeks. Sounds like there's a couple of minor caves or mines on the island.

Anyone explored any of them? Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a single mention of the island on this forum, and very little on the interwebs.

There's an entry in Tony Oldham's The Caves of the Southern Outcrop but the info is mostly pretty vague, with mainly unconfirmed reports of caves.
 

Stuart France

Active member
Interested to hear how you get on, and please get and share some photos.

The island is limestone, was joined to Mendip and South Wales when the sea level was lower than it is now.  There are 'caves' marked on the east coastline on the 1:25000 OS map, but as the ground level rises to only 30m, and the island is only 500m diameter, or thereabouts, the prospects of caverns measureless is a bit limited.

Here is the SSSI citation:
http://naturalresources.wales/media/646365/SSSI_0570_Citation_EN0019cf8.pdf

And the SSSI map which shows a cave (disused mine):
http://naturalresources.wales/media/646370/SSSI_0570_Map0018216.pdf

 

complex

Member
The MCRA website lists 5 sites on Flat Holm (none of them very long) - see for example http://www.mcra.org.uk/registry/sitedetails.php?id=796

There is a short article in one of the old Shepton journals (series 7 number 7) that I guess it should be in the BEC library if you wanted to have a look at it?
 

Sid

Member
Rich, entrance photos from your visit would be appreciated to add to MCRA. Hope its a good trip
Cheers

p.stillman [at] mcra . org . uk
 

andrewmcleod

Well-known member
Not complaining, and it's good that they are in a registry at all, but how come Welsh caves are in the MCRA?  ::)
 

complex

Member
andrewmc said:
Not complaining, and it's good that they are in a registry at all, but how come Welsh caves are in the MCRA?  ::)
The Cambrian Cave Registry also has similar details such as http://www.cambriancavingcouncil.org.uk/registry/ccr_registry_view.php?ID=1353 and I'm sure will also be grateful for any photographs of the entrance (or surveys).
 

mikem

Well-known member
Interesting geological visit:
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2014/11/flat-holm-erratic-hunt-7-geomorphology.html?m=1

Mike
 

mikem

Well-known member
& a previously unrecorded species of cave spider was found in smugglers hole last year:
http://www.marygillhamarchiveproject.com/timeline/2016-2018-mgap/mary-gillham-archive-project-on-flat-holm

Mike
 

rich

New member
Well I did say I'd report back, so here we go. I've written an article for the latest Belfry Bulletin, but here's a summary.

We had a good time on the island (drank their little pub dry of beer, naturally) and had a very interesting tour of the island from the very helpful warden. However, cave-wise there doesn't seem to be a lot there.

Smuggler's Hole is quite short (measured at 13m) but is a proper cave (just about!) I've attached a photo and a survey (done with SexyTopo of course). In our opinion it was all natural, contrary to other reports. Probably no chance of extending it further.

There are also a handful of sea caves, none of which go very far, but they look reasonably impressive. One of them might be the one described as not being pushed in the published articles. I had a climb around in it (see photo) and a squeeze. It does get too tight to continue to a definite end, but I'm pretty sure it's all sea cave.

I'll update one of the Cambrian or Mendip registries when I get a minute.

Well worth a visit, but I doubt there's much chance of finding more cave.
 

rich

New member
Oops, looks like the forum software doesn't like attachments. Can't seem to post them even as separate post and after shrinking them a lot.
 

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