20-462: Rowten Pot is one of several entrances into the 27-kilometre (17 mi) long cave system that drains Kingsdale in North Yorkshire , England . Its entrance is a shaft some 27 metres (89 ft) long, 10 metres (33 ft) wide, and at the southern end 72 metres (236 ft) deep. A stream enters from just below the surface at the northern end. The cave is largely vertical, but at the bottom
40-707: A few metres below the moor. Other nearby caves which also connect to the West Kingsdale System include Swinsto Cave , Simpson Pot , Aquamole Pot and Valley Entrance. The first description of Rowten Pot appeared in verse in Thomas Dixon's A Description of the Environs of Ingleborough of 1781: The Routing-Chasm amazing to behold, With dreadful yawn intimidates the bold: The depth unknown, vast, dismal, dark and wide, With rugged pointed rocks on every side; A rapid stream falls in with hideous roar, Growls thro
60-528: A variety of aerial routes. The three short sumps which connect to the Kingsdale Master Cave can be free-dived. The water which descends Rowten Pot sinks 150 metres (490 ft) to the west of the pot on the other side of Turbary Road, into a shallow horizontal cave system, known as Rowten Caves . This can be followed past a junction where Jingling Cave enters, through to where it emerges in Rowten Pot
80-606: Is a valley on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park in northern England . The name Kingsdale derives from a combination of Old Norse and Old English ( Kyen and Dael ) which means The valley where the cows were kept . Humans were active in Kingsdale from 6,700 BC onwards. Evidence of fire-pits used by hunter-gatherers have been found in the dale. Kingsdale is a short narrow dale, that measures 5.5 miles (8.9 km) from Thornton-in-Lonsdale in
100-579: Is frequently dry on the surface between Kingsdale Head and Keld Head, with the water travelling underground before resurfacing at Keld Head. The same thing happens to the River Skirfare in Littondale. Spells of wet weather often bring about a wall of water that travels down the valley across the dry riverbed. The single minor public road which serves the valley is an old packhorse route that connected Ingleton with Deepdale, then Dentdale, and which also forms
120-599: Is very close to the border with Cumbria and Lancashire and is 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Ingleton and 5 miles (8.0 km) south-east of Kirkby Lonsdale , and has a population of 308, falling to 288 at the 2011 Census. Its main claims to fame are the Marton Arms pub and St Oswald's Church , Sir Arthur Conan Doyle married his first wife at this church in 1885 and held his reception at The Marton Arms before setting off to Ireland on honeymoon. Doyle's mother resided at nearby Masongill from 1882 to 1917. In 1086
140-666: The Domesday Book listed on folio 301v under Craven Torntun & in Borch, Orm vi curactes ad geld. – that is in Thornton in Lonsdale with Burrow-with-Burrow Orm has circa 720 acres of plough-land to be taxed . This manor belonged to Orm, one of the family of Norse Noblemen who held the most land in Northern England. All estates would also include grazing land but since only arable land
160-541: The Cave Rescue Organisation on a rescue occurred here in 1986, when Dave Anderson slipped from a traverse into a gully near the bottom of the last pitch when searching for two missing cavers, and drowned under the force of the water. An accident in 1989 involving a threaded and worn out anchor on the entrance shaft which resulted in a broken back, hastened the development and installation of permanent anchors in popular UK caves. Kingsdale Kingsdale
180-595: The NCR 68 and the Yorkshire Dales Cycle Way . This road was a rough track until just after the Second World War , when it was re-laid with tarmac, and reaches a height of 1,552 feet (473 m). On the west high ground of the valley is a track known as Turbary Road (turbary being an ancient right to cut peat or turf for fuel). The route is so named as it was where the peat-cutters would transport their peat down
200-639: The River Twiss; Thornton Force is 49 feet (15 m) high over one drop, whereas Pecca Falls are a series of waterfall drops covering 115 feet (35 m). The ledge at the top of the waterfall of Thornton Force is made up of the Great Scar Limestone, the middle is cobbles from a sea of the Carboniferous period (350 million years ago), and the lower part, where the basin is, is composed of Ordovician slate which dates back 530 million years. Kingsdale Beck
220-515: The dale, but only for hunting during the summer months, with the people expected to be from the lowlands. More permanent occupancy of the dale occurred during the Bronze Age , with sooty mounds found in Kingsdale dating back to 1500 BC. The mounds consist of ash, charcoal, sooty remnants and rock fragments, though it is unclear what the mounds were for. Another named mound is the Apron Full of Stones ,
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#1733106480713240-470: The local legend being that the stones fell from the devil's apron. The site was excavated in 1972 and is a Bronze Age burial mound, though not made with limestone boulders, but from gritstone from outside of the valley. The enclosing of the land in the valley around 1820, involved the reclamation of some areas, and the beck was also straightened. This gives the valley, what W. R. Mitchell calls, "..an unusually neat appearance." The larger part of
260-565: The mountain to some distant shore: Dismay arrests the man that ventures near, His face turns pale, his courage yields to fear. In a guide book published in 1865, there is an account of a Mr. Hunter claiming to have made a complete descent, but the account is exaggerated and bears little resemblance to reality. It is likely, however, that the gully had been descended to the start of the vertical descents. A considered description appears in Balderstone's 1890 Ingleton, Bygone and Present , where it
280-519: The second recorded Yorkshire Dales caving fatality occurred in Rowten Pot. John Lambert initially fell a few feet and was made comfortable on a ledge by his companions. Water levels then rose and he either fell or was washed off down a 15 metres (49 ft) drop and died. Such was the effort required to rescue Lambert's companions, who were trapped by water in the shaft, that the BBC broadcast an appeal for any available potholers to help. The first fatality for
300-547: The south, to High Moss in the north. During the Last Glacial Maximum , when many of the dales were affected by ice, a glacier carved out the valley of Kingsdale, and left behind a lake impounded at its southern end by a terminal moraine Raven Ray, a piece of land higher than the broad valley beyond it. The presence of fire-pits in the dale dating back to the Mesolithic era (6850–6840 BC), provide evidence of humans using
320-506: The stream flows through a short section of passage into the underground West Kingsdale river. This connects downstream with the Kingsdale Master Cave through three short sumps . Upstream, longer sumps may be followed up the valley for over 1 kilometre (3,300 ft), passing below the final pitch of Aquamole Pot . The cave is usually descended using single rope techniques , and is popular with cavers, being spacious and offering
340-570: The valley lies within the county of North Yorkshire but its highest reaches fall just within Cumbria . It is defined by the hills of Whernside to its east and Gragareth to its west. Kingsdale is drained by the south-westward flowing Kingsdale Beck which assumes the name River Twiss before joining the River Doe at Ingleton to become the River Greta . Two large waterfalls are on the lower reaches of
360-557: The valley. There are several nationally important caves within the valley (such as Rowten Pot and Yordas Cave ) and the resurgence of Keld Head . Several other caves exist under the valley; Kail Pot, Swinsto Cave, King Pot, Jingling Pot, Valley Entrance, and Bull Pot. Thornton-in-Lonsdale Thornton in Lonsdale is a village and civil parish in the Craven District and ceremonial county of North Yorkshire in England . It
380-551: Was tallied their total area can only be induced. Because the parish of Thornton in Lonsdale was in the Lonsdale Hundred , a region more ancient than the county of Lancashire , it lay across two counties. A strip down the left side of the parish including Ireby was in Lancashire. The Lancashire area was about 3.7 miles (6 km) long and its width tapered from about 1.2 miles (2 km) to about 330 feet (100 m). However
400-467: Was variously given the names of Rowantree Gulf, Rowting Hole, and Rowton Holes. Balderstone also claims to have explored down the gully to a depth of 30 metres (98 ft). It was first fully descended to the sump by a Yorkshire Ramblers' Club party in June 1897. It was not linked with Kingsdale Master Cave through the downstream sump, however, until July 1966, shortly after the discovery of the latter. In 1939
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