tim.rose2
Well-known member
Inspired by OR's recent thread 'blast from the past' I thought I'd post some of Portland's intriguing cave history. Unlike OR, I don't have 1000's of old photo's to hand and I'm definitely not old enough to have been present! What I can share is some snippets from documents I've recently discovered which may interest a few. I should add, credit must be given to my long suffering, non-caver mother - she's the one with the interest local history who's got access to all sorts of things. I just hand over a nugget of info and let her do all the hard work! For example, "Mum, I think there was an article in the Dorset Echo about Sandy Hole, 1972 ish". A couple of days later it appears in my inbox, with a host of other related stuff.
So where do we start... Probably with the Victorians. Many people consider the Leicester University Geologists the first explorers of Portland's caves in the 1960's, however that wasn't the case at all. Unfortunately those before LUSS left little clues as to the sites they explored and in the most, were more interested in disputing the origins of the bones within the caves rather than the caves themselves (more on that sometime in the future). First, the important matter of 'show caves'...
The Trevor Ford (Leicester) paper from 1964 quoted a report from 1861 which detailed a grotto 30 foot by 12 foot in Freemans Quarry near the church with hundreds of stalactites and ornamental columns. Naturally I wanted to know more...
Firstly, 'the church' most certain refers to St Georges at Reforne, so we have a rough location. The first thing to do was track down the original text:
Further research turned up the following published in the Western Gazette in Nov 1859, presumably the same site. I'll take that as evidence of a Victorian show cave!
And then my Mother found this from 10 years later, Sept 1869.
A cave 600 yards long compared to what I'm assuming is Gough's Cave, on Portland. Well that's certainly news to me! So could it be possible there is a cave of reasonable proportions on the island, or is this some Victorian journalistic fiction? The only waterworn passage of decent proportions ever properly document was Sawmill Cave, this was around 150 m in length and North East of the church. Both ends intersected by quarrying, but unfortunately everything is now quarried away. Perhaps the Victorian's knew of it's downstream continuation? Although a lot of the area near the church has been quarried away, at 600 yards long, I'd have though a large part would have been under Weston or Easton, settlements below which the ground has never been disturbed. So perhaps there is a Portland Master Cave to be re-found?
Two questions remain, where exactly was Freemans Quarry and Hitchcraft Quarry? These are not names used today. My mother is still looking into that one!
Well that's the end of the first post. Does this sort of stuff interest anyone else? If so I'll keep posting when I've got nothing better to do, otherwise happy to write this thread off.
So where do we start... Probably with the Victorians. Many people consider the Leicester University Geologists the first explorers of Portland's caves in the 1960's, however that wasn't the case at all. Unfortunately those before LUSS left little clues as to the sites they explored and in the most, were more interested in disputing the origins of the bones within the caves rather than the caves themselves (more on that sometime in the future). First, the important matter of 'show caves'...
The Trevor Ford (Leicester) paper from 1964 quoted a report from 1861 which detailed a grotto 30 foot by 12 foot in Freemans Quarry near the church with hundreds of stalactites and ornamental columns. Naturally I wanted to know more...
Firstly, 'the church' most certain refers to St Georges at Reforne, so we have a rough location. The first thing to do was track down the original text:
Further research turned up the following published in the Western Gazette in Nov 1859, presumably the same site. I'll take that as evidence of a Victorian show cave!
And then my Mother found this from 10 years later, Sept 1869.
A cave 600 yards long compared to what I'm assuming is Gough's Cave, on Portland. Well that's certainly news to me! So could it be possible there is a cave of reasonable proportions on the island, or is this some Victorian journalistic fiction? The only waterworn passage of decent proportions ever properly document was Sawmill Cave, this was around 150 m in length and North East of the church. Both ends intersected by quarrying, but unfortunately everything is now quarried away. Perhaps the Victorian's knew of it's downstream continuation? Although a lot of the area near the church has been quarried away, at 600 yards long, I'd have though a large part would have been under Weston or Easton, settlements below which the ground has never been disturbed. So perhaps there is a Portland Master Cave to be re-found?
Two questions remain, where exactly was Freemans Quarry and Hitchcraft Quarry? These are not names used today. My mother is still looking into that one!
Well that's the end of the first post. Does this sort of stuff interest anyone else? If so I'll keep posting when I've got nothing better to do, otherwise happy to write this thread off.
