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Deepest cave in England

benshannon

benshannon

Active member
Hi guys,

I'm finding conflicting reports but I'm really curious to know, what is the deepest cave in England? I thought it was in the 3 counties system
 
Without looking anything up - the deepest point in the 3CS is the bottom of the upstream sump at -63 m. The sump surface is 1 m above the level of Leck Beck Head - so the deepest point in 3CS is 62 m below Leck Beck Head level. If you look up the altitude of LBH in the new Northern Caves guide and also look up the height of the highest entrance, that'll at least tell you the total depth of the system.

GG is quite deep too - deepest point is either in upstream Deep Well or at the bottom of one of the sumps below Lost River Chamber.

The 3 CS Survex team - or Kevin Dixon re GG - are perhaps your best sources of definitive information though.

 
Pretty sure it's 3CS, Peak cavern, Charterhouse. All deeper than 200m with 3CS about 250m deep.

And to be pedantic, pitlamp means the bottom of the upstream sump in Gavel Pot For the deepest point. I'm guessing the highest entrance is Large Pot???
 
Meregill to Roaring and into the Roaring Hole downstream sump is also a deep one - but not, I think, as much as 250 m..

Peak Cavern is certainly around the 250 m mark - Titan to deepest point in Main Rising sump (-70 m). The Peak District Survex team can tell you an exact figure.

Sorry Benfool - thanks for mentioning that - yes Gavel upstream sump.
 
It also probably depends on where you class the highest point of Peak/Speedwell system as. If it's the top of the titan entrance Shaft, then i suspect it's deeper than 250m.
 
So ukcaves seems to have 3 counties as the deepest in England as a few of you have said. So, the deepest without diving would be leck beck head?
 
Leck beck head is one of the resurgences to the 3CS, so no way if getting there without diving. I'm guessing that the lowest above water point in the 3CS is bottom of the 4th pitch in gavel (which will be the same depth as the start of the downstream sump in lost John's), at about -190m, although to get there from the highest point in the system you'd still need to dive.

I suspect the deepest cave without diving is Charterhouse.
 
Consulting the Peak/Speedwell 3D model, the Top of the Titan entrance shaft (and pretty much the top of the entrance shaft of JH) to the bottom of Main Rising, is 267m - which would make it deeper than the 3CS (if the 249m value on Wikipedia is to be believed). However both the Titan and JH entrance shafts are artificial, so it would seem wrong to count them - there are much much much deeper mines in the UK (1400m depth!!).

The very top of Titan, to the bottom of Main Rising is 237m - which would make it slightly shallower than the 3CS. The deepest you could do without diving would be 166m.

B
 
Amazingly I was just going to post exactly the same info - I'm glad I saw this before I typed it out ;)
 
aricooperdavis said:
benshannon said:
Ofd is in Wales matey
Click to expand...

:chair: that'll teach me not to skim read posts!
Click to expand...

Not wishing to be pedantic or controversial, but Wales is part of England, and has been since the campaigns of King Edward 1st in 1283.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Wales_by_Edward_I_of_England

I realise that is not without controversy!

Chris.

 
benshannon said:
So, the deepest without diving would be leck beck head?
Click to expand...

I never really understood why some cavers focus only on the vadose zone. Just because parts of a cave system are water filled doesn't mean they're not there.

Or are you just interested in the depths of popular trips?

 
Pitlamp said:
benshannon said:
So, the deepest without diving would be leck beck head?
Click to expand...

I never really understood why some cavers focus only on the vadose zone. Just because parts of a cave system are water filled doesn't mean they're not there.

Or are you just interested in the depths of popular trips?
Click to expand...

Well I have an adventure in my mind that I would like to do. I don't cave dive so I want to go as deep as I can in England without diving.
 
In September 2007, Jim Lister and Mark Smith did a through-trip from the top entrance to Titan to Peak Resurgence, including dives through Far Sump, Buxton Water Sump and the Resurgence itself. This was reported as having a vertical range of 241.4m and was believed to be the deepest through-trip in England, if not Britain, at the time.
 
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