Which part of the UK has the most potential for original cave study or discovery? The size of the caves (or potential caves) is not particularly important.

As it is the largest area, I would guess at the Yorkshire Dales and surrounding area.

Anglesey.

Chris.

The Chalk of southeast England. Trouble is most caves are infilled with sediment....

Even Mendip has found at least 10km of passage in the last 10 years...

Mike

Andy Farrant said:

The Chalk of southeast England. Trouble is most caves are infilled with sediment....

Click to expand...

There's a huge area under central Brighton that was used to house WWII electronics.
The humidity is perfect and, as far as I know, a great deal of it is still there.

To be clear I'm looking for areas with potential that have been relatively neglected by cavers. Potential for new entrances or undocumented karst features, however modest. There may be no such areas given the land to caver ratios.

Magnesian Limestone areas?

Weardale possibly

Below -50m in the sump(s) of Derbyshire.

Or that bit of yorkshire the moldywarps like to poke at. I think its called the northern dales. Is weardale in there?

I would suggest the North Pennines and the Northern part of the Yorkshire Dales as an area with massive potential for the discovery of lengthy systems.

There are several maze caves which have been discovered by mining over the last couple of hundred years, the longest of which is Hudgillburn @13.2km. Also Knock Fell Caverns @4.5km, Ayleburn Cavern @1.7km, Fairy Holes in Weardale @3.2km, Faggergill in Arkengarthdale @7km+, Devis @6.7km.

A good look at the map in conjunction with Google Earth would suggest that there are many more such systems waiting to be discovered - shakeholes all over the place. When I?ve been out hiking I have walked past many big sinkholes with substantial streams flowing underground - they just happen to be in fairly remote locations.

A few years ago, when I worked for Cheddar Caves, I asked our then radon  consultant, John Gunn, why there are hardly any caves in the Cotswolds.  He said that the bedding is so thin that the rock can't support a void and the water flows along a continuous boulder choke. Also there is no impermeable core like the sandstone of the carboniferous areas so surface streams do not form to develop swallets. He also said I should ask Andy Farrant who knows more about it than him, but I don't think I've seen Andy since then. It would be interesting to hear what you have to say on this topic, Andy.

Three  places spring to mind .
Is there not a bit of limestone S.of Derbyshire in Staffordshire that never gets a mention.
Also when you park at the end of the road and start to walk onto Grassington Moor.If you take the
Northen road there is a very high wall.Long walk onto the Moor so this high wall is usually ignored.
If you look over this wall you will see some massive Shake holes.There is Gritstone on top ,but Limestone
underneath.This is on the hill before you descend to the dry valley.  These holes have nothing to do with mining and are natural as far as I know .Wonder if anyone else has noticed them.
If you are new to caving and go to Hidden Earth ,year in year out ,you may be forgiven for thinking
that there is no Limestone in North Wales .Bit of a puzzle that one !

There are quite a few places around where there is at least some limestone or dolomite, but you don't often hear about caves (or at least I don't);

Around the north and south margins of the Lake District
North Pennines as has already been mentioned
A large line of dolomite from Nottingham up to Harrogate

And between Derbyshire and Lincolnshire there seem to be a few areas where at least a bit of limestone crops out.

Anything significant known in any of these?

Still potential in both Devon and the North York Moors.

Great question Kenilworth!

I used to spend time at geological museum in London, studying geological maps of Britain and Ireland

Honestly, I am certain there is huge potential for new cave all over the British Isles.  the underground hydrology and geology point to some gigantic systems awaiting the cave explorer...

I think one of the limiting factors for these caves having remained un-located or explored is the sociology of caving as an activity, Invariably we become so parochial, we find a patch and stick with it..... not a negative thing.... just an observation...

richardg said:

I think one of the limiting factors for these caves having remained un-located or explored is the sociology of caving as an activity, Invariably we become so parochial, we find a patch and stick with it..... not a negative thing.... just an observation...

Click to expand...

Not a negative thing at all, in my opinion, and a useful observation if it explains unexamined or underexamined karst. I believe that sticking to a particular area is useful for several reasons. It allows for a more complete understanding of and thus relationship with those caves, and the people connected to them and living above them. It creates a sense of responsibility for what becomes personally intimate, leading hopefully to a desire to care for. It allows opportunity for specialized learning, even by the amateur. There are dangers too. If restricted to a single area the tendency may be to overtax an ecology that has ceased to provide a multifaceted justification for our being there.

In my own case, I have stopped caving outside of the few areas that I am deeply connected to. These contain thousands of caves and unlimited potential for discovery and learning from the standpoint of a single human lifespan. I do not wish to get a halfway glimpse at the caves of the world, or to impact places of which I will never be a member.

For a few reasons, I am making partial exceptions to these decisions in the case of the UK, hence these questions. Thank you for the ideas so far, I have spent my day in research on their basis.

I'm with Chris. Anglesey. Tonnes of limestone. My bet is on a resurgence into the Lligwy.

Not UK, but still.. there is a lot to be found and researched just over the border NW Ireland,  Sligo/Leitrim, check out the Bricklieve Mountains, most of the uplands north and west of Lough Allen, Geevagh, Benbulben etc, etc.

RobinGriffiths said:

I'm with Chris. Anglesey. Tonnes of limestone. My bet is on a resurgence into the Lligwy.

Click to expand...

I believe you have thoroughly investigated it Robin, at least, is it Ogofa 5 that has a lot of information on the subject?. Nothing spectacular found yet...

Chris.