Short Drop Cave - Gavel Pot System facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Short Drop Cave - Gavel Pot system
Calcite formations in Glasfurd's Chamber
Location	Leck Fell, Lancashire, England
OS grid	SD 67026892
Depth	212 metres (696 ft)
Length	about 4.68 kilometres (2.91 mi)
Elevation	323 metres (1,060 ft)
Discovery	1885
Geology	Carboniferous limestone
Entrances	4
Hazards	verticality, water
Access	Unrestricted

Short Drop Cave and Gavel Pot are two different ways to enter the same amazing cave system. You can find them on Leck Fell in Lancashire, England. The main entrance, Short Drop Cave, is a small opening in a fenced-off shakehole (a bowl-shaped dip in the ground). Gavel Pot is a much larger shakehole, about 40-metre (130 ft) deep, and you need special gear to go down it.

There are two other smaller entrances to Short Drop Cave. Deep inside, this cave system connects to Lost John's Cave through an underwater tunnel called a sump. It's all part of the huge Three Counties System, which is about 87 kilometres (54 mi) long! This giant cave system stretches across the borders of Cumbria, Lancashire, and North Yorkshire.

Exploring the Short Drop Cave System

This cave system is a fascinating place to explore, with different paths and chambers. It's like a natural maze underground!

Short Drop Cave: Main Entrance

The main way into Short Drop Cave is through a small hole at the end of a shallow valley. This hole drops you right into a stream passage. If you go upstream, you'll find a narrow canal passage. It gets too tight to go further, but a dug-out squeeze on the right leads to another entrance called Coal Hole.

Downstream from the entrance, you'll travel through about 100 metres (330 ft) of mostly low passages. This leads to a loop in the passage, where a bigger passage joins from the Rift Entrance. You can also follow a long, tricky passage to the north-east for about 300 metres (980 ft), almost reaching the Rumbling Hole stream sinks. There's also an old, higher route called Ancient Highway that loops back to the main path.

The main passage continues downstream as a canyon, getting wider and wider. It passes an inlet on the left where the main water flows in. This inlet can be followed up to where it's blocked by boulders under the stream sink. The main passage keeps going for about 300 metres (980 ft), reaching up to 15 metres (49 ft) high and 5 metres (16 ft) wide. You'll pass under a natural boulder bridge before it ends in a blocked chamber in the roof.

The water then flows through a narrow, winding canyon to a 5 metres (16 ft) waterfall. After this, it continues to a second waterfall, 8 metres (26 ft) high. At the bottom of this second waterfall, the water disappears into a pool that's blocked by a sump. You can walk around the top of this waterfall to where a passage from the Gavel Pot shakehole joins.

Rift Entrance: A Hidden Path

The Rift Entrance is a currently blocked entrance just over a wall from the main sink. If you climb down, you enter a rift chamber. From there, a passage leads into the First Oxbow in Short Drop Cave.

Coal Hole Entrance: A Squeeze Through

The Coal Hole Entrance is found in a small shakehole south-east of Rumbling Hole. After a long crawl, you reach a chamber where you can see a layer of coal in the walls. A dug-out squeeze here drops you into the Canals Inlet in Short Drop Cave.

Gavel Pot: The Big Shakehole

Gavel Pot is a very large, steep-sided shakehole. It's about 140 metres (460 ft) deep and 140 metres (460 ft) around, making it one of the biggest shakeholes in England! If you scramble down the eastern side, you'll reach a ledge. From here, an 8 metres (26 ft) drop takes you to the end of the traverse from Short Drop Cave.

In the other direction, a high canyon passage quickly leads into the bottom of the Gavel Pot shakehole, with rocky cliffs above. In one corner, another 8 metres (26 ft) drop over a large rock lands you in a chamber. From there, a dug-out 10 metres (33 ft) drop takes you into the main passage.

The water from Short Drop Cave soon joins from the right. You'll pass a large collapse from Ash Tree Hole, which is on the surface, on your left. The passage then turns into a canyon and drops down two wet shafts, one 26 metres (85 ft) deep and the other 17 metres (56 ft) deep. The last shaft lands in a chamber with a sump pool. This pool is a window into the underwater passages that carry water from Notts Pot to where it comes out at Leck Beck Head.

Divers have explored upstream for 120 metres (390 ft) to a shaft 60 metres (200 ft) deep. At the bottom, a passage goes down and is blocked at a depth of 64 metres (210 ft). This is the deepest known point in the Three Counties System! The main downstream passage has been explored by divers for about 1.7 kilometres (5,600 ft). It goes past a junction and an inlet from Pippikin Pot, all the way to the resurgence, much of it at 30 metres (98 ft) deep.

Glasfurd's Chamber: A Beautiful Spot

In the upper part of the main passage, there's a window that leads into a series of beautifully decorated chambers called Glasfurd's Chamber. These chambers are filled with amazing calcite formations, like natural sculptures.

How the Cave Formed: Geology and Water Flow

This cave is a solutional cave, which means it was formed by water dissolving rock. It's carved into a type of rock called Great Scar limestone, which formed during the Carboniferous period, about 350 million years ago.

The old, abandoned passages in Short Drop Cave show that it has been forming for a very long time. Today, water flows through the main passages of Short Drop Cave and Gavel Pot. It then joins the main water flow from Ireby Fell Cavern and Notts Pot at the bottom of the cave. From there, the water flows through to its resurgence (where it comes out of the ground) at Leck Beck Head.

The way the main cave system is shaped and where it points was likely affected by a gentle fold in the rock layers called a syncline. The height of Short Drop Cave was also influenced by a major boundary between different limestone layers, marked by a thin layer of shale and sometimes coal.

Glasfurd's Chamber is believed to be part of a major phreatic passage. This means it formed completely full of water, deep underground, about 350,000 years ago. Back then, water from a big sinkhole at Rumbling Hole flowed through Death's Head Hole and Glasfurd's Chamber. It then came out into the Leck Beck valley, about 100 metres (330 ft) higher than where the water comes out today. That old resurgence is now covered by glacial till, which is rock and dirt left behind by glaciers.

A Look Back: History of Exploration

People first started exploring the Gavel Pot - Short Drop system in 1885. A group of explorers, including Messrs. W. Eckroyd, Geoffrey, and Cuthbert Hastings, went down one of the entrances in the Gavel Pot shakehole. They explored Short Drop Cave far upstream, using a ladder they made from iron pipes and rope to climb a 5-metre (16 ft) high waterfall. They thought it was a different cave called "Low Dowk Cave."

Before that, in 1842, Jonathan Otley called it "Gavel-pot," and in 1881, Balderstone referred to it as "Gavel or Navel Pot."

Short Drop Cave was fully explored through to Gavel Pot by a Yorkshire Ramblers' Club team in 1898. Later, in 1965, the University of Leeds Speleological Society did a big survey of the system. They pushed into many new passages, including the Ancient Highway, and opened up the Rift Entrance. This extended the cave to a length of 2,250 metres (7,380 ft). The Coal Hole entrance was explored through to Short Drop in 1977 by the Cave Projects Group.

The main passages in Gavel Pot were first explored in 1970 by the Northern Pennine Club. They dug a shaft in the final chamber. The upstream sump was first explored by diver Dave Yeandle. Geoff Yeadon dove into the sump to a depth of 41 metres (135 ft) in 1974, and the shaft was finally reached at its deepest point in 1985 by Rob Palmer. The underwater connection downstream to Lost Johns' Cave was made by Bob Churcher in 1975, and the connection to Pippikin Pot was made in 1989 by Geoff Yeadon.