Guide · Geology Yorkshire Dales
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The Yorkshire Dales sit on some of the most extensively cavernous limestone in Britain. Below the surface of the fields and moors around Ingleborough and Malham, a network of cave systems developed over millions of years as slightly acidic groundwater dissolved the limestone along joints and bedding planes. Two of these systems are open to the public: Ingleborough Cave near Clapham, and White Scar Cave on the road to Ribblehead — the two finest show caves in the Dales and among the finest in England.
Ingleborough Cave is reached by a walk of approximately one mile along Clapdale from Clapham village — itself one of the finest limestone villages in the western Dales, with a stream running through the centre under limestone bridges. The path to the cave passes through woodland above the beck and ends at the cave entrance in a dramatic position at the foot of the limestone scar.
The cave was first explored in 1837 when a local landowner, the Farrer family of Ingleborough Hall, broke through a rock barrier to reveal the passage beyond. The development of the cave as a visitor attraction followed in the Victorian period; it has been open continuously since 1839.
The public tour covers approximately 400 metres of the cave, with formations including stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone and cave pearls. The cave has a constant temperature of approximately 7°C — warmer in winter than the outside air, cooler in summer. The tour takes approximately 45 minutes.
White Scar Cave, on the B6255 road between Ingleton and Ribblehead, is the longest show cave in Britain — the public tour covers approximately 1.5km of passages and chambers. It was discovered in 1923 by a Cambridge student, Christopher Long, who explored the initial passage with a candle.
The cave contains one of the largest underground chambers open to the public in Britain — the Battlefield Cavern, approximately 100 metres long and 30 metres high. The cave is formed in the Great Scar Limestone and contains extensive stalactite and stalagmite formations. The stream that flows through the cave is visible throughout the tour, which takes approximately 80 minutes.
Practical: White Scar Cave is open daily (except Christmas Day) year-round. Advance booking is recommended in summer.
Gaping Gill — not open to the public as a standard show cave, but worth mentioning for context — is a pothole on the flank of Ingleborough into which Fell Beck disappears underground and drops 98 metres into the main chamber below. The main chamber is the largest underground chamber in Britain. Twice a year (typically bank holiday weekends in May and August) the Bradford and Craven Pothole Clubs operate a winch that allows members of the public to descend into the chamber by bosun's chair. Check the Yorkshire Dales website for current dates.
Show caves support specialised cave-adapted fauna: cave spiders, cave-adapted beetles, various invertebrates adapted to the permanent dark and cold. The cave pearls at Ingleborough Cave — spherical formations of calcite deposited in shallow water pools — are formed by a process that requires water dripping at exactly the right rate to coat the nucleus (a grain of sand or grit) without sweeping it away. Each one takes hundreds of years to form.
Cave visits and Dales geology can be included in a bespoke tour of the Three Peaks landscape.
More from the Yorkshire Dales:
Ingleborough Cave near Clapham, and White Scar Cave on the road to Ribblehead.
In 1837, when the Farrer family of Ingleborough Hall broke through a rock barrier to reveal the passage beyond.
About a mile, along Clapdale.