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The club has adopted the Caves of Storrs Common under Descents adopt-a-cave scheme..We will report here any conservation work carried out on Storrs Common by BRCC members or any other clubs and cavers.
Geology and History:
| Storrs Common is an open area of land outside the village of Ingleton and lies just inside the boundary of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The area is formed in the Great Scar Limestone but is separated from the main block by the North Craven Fault. The South Craven Fault forms the boundary on the south western edge of the Common. The position between the two major faults means the Limestone has been buckled in either direction resulting locally in dips of upto 45degrees in the strata, which is shown on the pictures to the right and below. |  |
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The common has been actively quarried in the past, small scale operations on either side of and close to the road but a bigger operation resulted in the large Beezley Quarry appearing. Since then the council has used Beezley Quarry for dumping bitumen and chippings etc, see picture on the left, which has unfortunately resulted in the loss of two known caves (Continuation of Long Gour Cave and Quarry Pot). |
Conservation Work:
Long Gour Cave received a new slate tile as a cover, the rather heavy object was carried up by Steve and Robbie from Bernies with the intention of being used to cap Lower Arch. Upon arrival they found Ged had already seen to the capping of Lower Arch so it was taken down to provide a new cover for Long Gour Cave. Unfortunately this slate has all but been destroyed by mindless muppets.
Lower Arch Cave has had its upper entrance (shaft) capped, the question of safety was raised about the shaft being open and a slate tile was offered but Ged did an excellent job using metal poles, wood, rocks, sand (of which we have an abundance) and finally covered that with grass to permanently cap the shaft, given time the cap will blend in with the surrounding area and you wouldn't know it was there.
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On the 18th January 2003, Dunc, Pete, Adam and Ged went into Skirwith Cave for a short tourist and photo trip, a short distance inside some rusty metal was noticed and this was duly removed on the way out, only a small bit of rubbish but every little bit helps! |
On the 28th Feb, Ged, Simon and Adam removed a large quantity of rubbish including 5litre containers from Wood Wizard Cave and other caves nearby and it was buried under at least 2ft of digging spoil from the Wood Wizard dig - a visit later in the year showed that this was slowly grassing over.
A bit more work will be undertaken in this area to clean up Eeltrap at some point in the future - possibly again covered by spoil from the intermittent Wood Wizard dig.
To do:
Removal of rubbish from entrance passage of Long Gour Cave, this consists of cans, glass etc.
Upon digging finishing (long way away) at Lower Arch Cave the entrance and spoil heap will be gardened.
If you have any suggestions for conservation work on Storrs then let us know and we'll look into it, or how about donating some time and lending a hand to help keep the caves in a respectable condition..