Balve Cave, Cave entrance in Balve, Germany

Balve Cave is a karst cave in the Hönne valley near Balve, North Rhine-Westphalia. Its entrance portal is 11 metres high and 18 metres wide, opening into a tunnel-like hall that extends about 90 metres into the rock. After 54 metres the hall divides into two side passages named after the geologist Heinrich von Dechen and the naturalist Rudolf Virchow. A three-step staircase about 15 metres wide compensates for the height difference inside.

The cave was first documented in 1690, though a 1645 map of Westphalia already marked it in Latin as an unexplored hollow. Around 15 metres of sediment then blocked the entrance; Balve farmers removed nearly all of it as fertiliser for their fields, which is why many stone artefacts were later found lying on the surrounding land. Archaeologists recovered over 40,000 artefacts from the clay fill, among the oldest in the Sieger- and Sauerland, dated to the later Middle Palaeolithic.

The cave is owned by the Schützenbruderschaft St. Sebastian Balve, whose marksmen's festival has been held here annually for over 160 years. Since 1985 the Festspiele Balver Höhle has staged theatre and music, opening with Hermann Wedekind's production of Katharina von Georgien; fairy-tale dramas and oriental musicals such as Der kleine Muck followed.

The cave lies on the eastern slope of the Hönnetal at the northern edge of Balve, at 145–148 m above sea level. The 11 m high, 18 m wide entrance portal opens onto a paved forecourt where the white entrance building stands. Inside, a three-step staircase about 15 m wide bridges the height difference between the entrance and the cave floor.

The cave's entrance was once blocked by roughly 15 metres of sediment. Balve farmers removed nearly all of it because the clay worked well as fertiliser, spreading it on nearby fields; many archaeological finds were later picked up lying on those fields, where local researchers such as Heinrich Falke and Josef Pütter specialised in collecting them.