Caves around reading

[Jim]

Does anyone know of any caves around reading I heard there's Emmer green chalk mines are these accessible do you need a guide or access key permission

 

[me]

There are no caves in Reading.

The chalk mines:
One entrance is on private land and is well fortified as it would be a long open drop in the middle of  housing estate otherwise.

The other entrances are gated for the same reason and I am not sure if they are still openable.

There are probably lots more entrances but as most were closed before 1900 they did not have to be marked.  Some house owners are discovering them and wish they hadn't.

 

[Andy Farrant]

Plenty of karst and some caves in the Chalk near Yattendon, Newbury but mostly too small to enter! In face there are more stream sinks around Newbury than on Mendip....

 

[Judi Durber]

Wow

Plenty of karst and some caves in the Chalk near Yattendon, Newbury

  I didn't know that.

I have followed the Pang from top to tail. Walked a lot of the footpaths round there but guess you must have to go 'off piste' a bit to find the caves.

Any map locations?  :doubt: Going to make walkies more interesting from now on 

 

[David Rose]

There is a little swallet on Cumnor Hill just outside Oxford which OUCC explored to a length of about 10m in the late 50s. Nearby the large (and lovely) Wytham Woods nature reserve (owned by the university) is all on reef limestone which outcrops in several places. There is no surface water and many depressions. The hill on which the reserve is located has a vertical range of about 170m. I have often wondered if there is any potential for a proper cave system there.

 

[ttxela]

Is access not possible to Emmer Green now then?  :doubt:

 

[Peter Burgess]

One of the systems is accessible, but I think the other one isn't.