Found a cool man-made cave (Hurker Woods, Darley area)

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Oct 5, 2020
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Peak District
Apologies for lack of original images - writing this on mobile and can’t figure out how to upload them - will link 3rd party image below:

farley_hurker01.jpg


Popped out for a day hiking above Darley Dale/Matlock and ended up in Hurker Woods for the first time - lovely little wood full of pine and birch.

Whilst finding a place to light a fire and get the stew on we stumbled across an intriguing man-made cave - it’s been hewn into one solid boulder and has two sets of windows and a main entrance.

After a little digging it turns out it was used as a hiding place by Sheffield robbers in the 1850s, although clearly not to much effect as they were eventually caught there - no idea who originally carved this out of the rock but it must have taken considerable time and effort.

Will link to the site we found the info on here - there’s an image on there that shows it quite well!


Anyway - was a really cool place to have a bite to eat and get out of the drizzle - anyone else found anything interesting or unexpected recently?
 
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Nice and interesting find. Nothing like that here, granite is too hard for cave carving. The little lime stone (or actually microcrystalline marble a geologist told me) that is above ground has been dug up ages ago by farmers. Some marble around though closest outcrop by wayside a click away.
 
[mention]Toddy [/mention] seems that way doesn’t it - I’d love to know how long it took them and what tools they’d have used!

Interestingly enough we knew about the actual hall itself and set out with that in mind - we thought we had found the boundary wall so followed that and it led us to the Hermit’s Cave/Summer House.

If anyone is interested it’s co-ordinates are:


LAT: 53.1538
LONG: -1.5533


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Theres one called Lacy Caves near Lazonby and another near Wetheral as as well.
Me and a mate once camped in Lacy caves over a Christmas holidays.
Was freezing kipping in our German army sleeping bags (the dead heavy ones with arms in em) and we... ahem... liberated two straw bales from a nearby barn to keep us off the ground.

Some footage I found on Youtube showing the general idea of the place.
 
Theres one called Lacy Caves near Lazonby and another near Wetherall as as well.
Me and a mate once camped in Lacy caves over a Christmas holidays.
Was freezing kipping in our German army sleeping bags (the dead heavy ones with arms in em) and we... ahem... liberated two straw bales from a nearby barn to keep us off the ground.

Some footage I found on Youtube showing the general idea of the place.

Great stuff - they look far more impressive! Can imagine it was f**king freezing!


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I think I've kayaked that stretch of Eden. Is it the place with face carvings on the crag too or am I mistaken?
 

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