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Caving in Cornwall

rhychydwr1

rhychydwr1

Active member
Went to Newquay yesterday, a lovely little seaside town.  The man in the Tourist Office was very helpful and gave [!] me a map showing the locations of Cathedral Cave and Tea Cavern.  A photographic trip showed that we needed low tide for a visit.

Now my problem.  Can anyone located the following caves at Newquay: 

Blowing Hole,  Fern Cave, Great Bathing Cave, Pipers Hole, Porth Cave, Tea Caverns, and The Cavern?

The e-book is now 35 pages long.  Email me if you want a copy.  Surprisingly it is free  :eek:
 
rhychydwr1

rhychydwr1

Active member
Latest news, the team from Cwmparc are just back from Cornwall and have added another 14 caves to the guide book.  If you want a copy as an attachment, just email me.  Surprisingly it is free.  :eek:
 
gus horsley

gus horsley

New member
Newquay won't be such a lovely seaside town soon - they're in the process of building about 3,000 new houses on prime agricultural land.  Our 5 minute walk into unspoilt countryside is going to be a thing of the past.

Fern Cave is often referred to as the rubbish-infested sizeable fossil sea cave above high tide between Tolcarne Beach and Lusty Glaze, a popular haunt for parties etc which sees a number of "rescues" each tourist season.
Pipers Hole I think was destroyed when the area around Headland Hotel was redeveloped, along with some features known as Fairy (or Pixies) Holes which were unique.
Porth cave is on the east side of Porth Beach and involves some easy scrambling at low tide to reach a short sea cave which runs parallel to the beach, notable for a few pyrite cubes and badly-preserved fossil corals (a rarety in these parts).
Blowing Hole is a bit further out towards the sea from Porth Cave and bisects Porth Island at a wide zawn and consists of a slippery rift.  When the tide comes in it can be quite impressive but would be very foolhardy to explore.
There is a second cave known as Tea Caverns at Whipsiderry, the next beach east of Porth, reached at low tide on the west side of the bay, a large but not very long sea cave.
I've not heard of Great Bathing Cave and The Cavern (the last could be just about anywhere) but I'll ask some of the older locals to see if they have a clue.
 
gus horsley

gus horsley

New member
Ok Tony here you go, all NGRs prefixed with SW:

Fern Cave is at 819623
Pipers Hole 800624
Porth Cave 825629
Blowing Hole 824631
Tea Caverns (Whipsiderry) 828632

There's also some ancient iron workings which could be a couple of thousand years old which are located in Flory Island at 830633 and appear to be modified small sea caves which have eroded a siderite lode.  There are a couple of gated adits in the mainland immediately to the east, one of which goes for about 300ft but hasn't been stoped.  The other is much shorter.  They are locally reputed to connect to an obscured lead mine about a mile inland but obviously never did.
 
gus horsley

gus horsley

New member
I'm not sure there's a designated mine (or cave) rescue team currently operating in Cornwall.  The last I heard there was a dispute with other emergency services as to who was responsible.  I don't think it's been resolved but someone else may be able to enlighten you.
 
rhychydwr1

rhychydwr1

Active member
rrx said:
are you planning on getting stuck in a flooded sea cave? :-\
Click to expand...

No but, yes but.  Apart from a couple of limestone caves, all the caves in Cornwall are sea caves.  I had a look at the Carbis Bay website, but there was nothing about cave or mine rescue callout procedure.
 
R

rrx

New member
I shall be sure to add something, although i'm sure I had somewhere, but standard procedure I would have thought of dial 999, as for sea caves the coastguard and RNLI are the people who would be called for that
 
rhychydwr1

rhychydwr1

Active member
I agree.  This is the Cave Rescue entry so far:


CAVE RESCUE

As far as I know, there is no cave rescue organisation in Cornwall.  All I can advise is to pay attention to the paragraph on Safety, above.  Otherwise, dial 999 and ask for which emergency service you think is appropriate:  Police, Fire Brigade, Ambulance or Coast Guards according to the emergency.

Stop press! There is a Cornwall Search and Rescue Team.  They appear to be more of a Moorland Rescue Team, rather than a Cave Rescue Team.  To call them, dial 999 and ask for Mountain Rescue.

 
R

rrx

New member
The feel free to edit, CSRT also have a Mine Rescue team and are a BCRC team also, although the data on the BCRC site is out of date, no point calling it a cave rescue team for an county(country to some) with no real caves
 
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