Ash Hole Cavern, Ancient limestone cave in Brixham, England.
Ash Hole Cavern is a limestone cave in Brixham, Devon, with two entrances: a natural opening at the base of a sinkhole and a larger one cut through quarrying in the 19th century. Both openings connect into the same underground system, which is now a scheduled monument.
Excavations carried out in the 1830s uncovered human remains alongside Roman coins and pottery from the Bronze Age. These finds confirmed that people used the cave across a very long span of time, well before any written records.
The walls of the cave carry inscriptions left by visitors in the 1920s, scratched into the rock as a way of marking a visit. These traces show how the site drew curious people long before it became a protected monument.
The cave is accessible from Mount Pleasant Road in Brixham and sits within a protected site, so visitors should take care not to disturb the surroundings. Going during daylight makes it easier to spot both entrances and to move around the area safely.
Reverend Henry Francis Lyte, who wrote the hymn 'Abide With Me', once explored this cave in search of a supposed underground passage. The tunnel was said to run all the way to the nearby town of Kingswear, but no such passage was ever found.
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