CHAPTER 8: The Greta Headwaters

132 Chapter 8: The Greta Headwaters
it says on its roof, that is, caves – to be precise, the
White Scar Caves. By the time Chapel Beck crosses
the footpath from Beezleys it is wide and docile enough
to require nearly fifty stepping-stones to cross. But it
is only girding its loins for a tumultuous fall through
Baxenghyll Gorge, including impressive cascades at
Beezley Falls, Rival Falls and Snow Falls, between
which the water lies black-brown in deep pools.
The glen is a Site of Special Scientific Interest
because of its geology and associated flora. It is also
designated an Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland, ancient
in this context being defined as pre-1600. Ancient
woodland is scarce locally because of grazing but much
of this glen is inaccessible to sheep or cattle, enabling
oak and birch, with occasional hazel, holly and rowan,
to flourish on the acidic soils that overlie the Silurian
slate. The woodlands are also important for their mosses
and liverworts, which thrive in dark gullies, and ground
plants such as wood rush, dog’s mercury and wild
garlic.
The path alongside the falls provides views of
several disused slate quarries, while from high to the
east the stone-crushing noise of Skirwith Quarry may
well intrude. This quarry continues to mine the Ingleton
Granite previously mined upstream.
As Chapel Beck emerges from the wooded glen
it passes through the remains of Mealbank Quarry.
Beezley Falls
White Scar Caves are the longest show caves in England.
They were discovered in 1923 when two Cambridge
students, Christopher Long and John Churchill, investigated
Playfair’s Cave, then thought to lead only a short distance.
They had previously explored the Cheddar Gorge in
Somerset and Stump Cross Cavern near Harrogate and,
having concluded that there was money to be made from
developing a show cave, had come to Ingleborough with
that specific intention.
So, wearing, according to the Yorkshire Post, an outfit
that “consisted of all-leather clothes, thoroughly treated
with dubbin; a helmet, with three candles and an electric
lamp, served by a battery and switch attached to their belts;
rock-climbing boots and a plentiful application of vaseline
to such parts of their body as were exposed” (that is, most
of them), Long and Churchill ventured in. They found a
way beyond a pool and after crawling 200m reached the
first waterfall of the cave’s main stream. Subsequently they
explored upstream, passing many fine formations, now
bearing prosaic names such as the Sword of Damocles and
the Devil’s Tongue, as far as the lakes now bypassed by the
Bagshaw Tunnel.
Unfortunately, they were not rewarded for this
endeavour because Long, a manic depressive, died of a
drug overdose in 1924 and Churchill was unable to raise
sufficient funds to continue the development of the cave.
The cave was eventually opened to the public in 1925,
with the first manager, Tom Greenwood, adding further
galleries and passages in the 1930s. In 1971 the massive
200,000-year-old Battlefield Cavern, 100m long and 30m
high with thousands of delicate stalactites and undisturbed
prehistoric mud pools, was discovered and this now forms
the climax of the present tour, 1.5km and 90 minutes from
the entrance.
It contains probably the thickest coal seam within an
English limestone sequence, and the sediments are rich
in fossils yet to be fully understood. The quarry also
has the ruins of England’s first Hoffmann kiln, which
operated from 1864 to 1909. This kiln had a literally
revolutionary design, whereby material was burned in
a continuous horizontal loop, rather than tipped into a
vertical furnace.
On the outskirts of Ingleton, Chapel Beck passes an
outdoor swimming pool that a plaque proudly informs
us has been ranked the 52 nd such pool in the world. Just
before the viaduct for the old Lowgill-Clapham line
Chapel Beck is joined by Kingsdale Beck to form the
River Greta.
This is Chapter 8 of The Land of the Lune (2nd edition), http://www.drakkar.co.uk/landofthelune.html, Copyright © 2010 John Self