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The limestone hills of the White Peaks are riddled with water-worn
cave systems, best explored in the four show caves within walking
distance of CASTLETON , ten miles northeast of Buxton. It's an agreeable
small town, overlooked by Mam Tor, ringed by hills and cut through by a
babbling river lined with stone cottages. Indeed, as a base for local
walks it's hard to beat, and the hikers resting up in the quiet Market
Place near the church have the choice of a fine spread of local
accommodation and services. Overseeing the whole ensemble is Peveril
Castle (April-Oct daily 10am-6pm; Nov-March Wed-Sun 10am-4pm; £2.30;
EH), from which the village gets its name. Its construction was started
by William I's illegitimate son William Peveril to protect the king's
rights to the forest that then covered vast areas of the Peak District.
After a stiff climb up to the keep, you can trace much of the surviving
curtain wall, which commands great views of the Hope Valley.
The closest cavern to town, the Peak Cavern (Easter-Oct daily 10am-5pm;
Nov-Easter Sat & Sun 10am-4pm; £5; tel 01433/620285) is tucked in a
gully at the back of the town, its gaping mouth once providing shelter
for a rope factory and a small village, of which a vague floorplan
remains. Daniel Defoe, visiting in the eighteenth century, noted the
cavern's colourful local name, the "Devil's Arse", after the fiendish
fashion in which the interior contours twisted and turned. Twenty
minutes' walk out of town along the road west to Winnat's Pass (there's
a parallel route, across the fields) lies Speedwell Cavern (daily:
Easter-Oct 9.30am-6pm; Nov-Easter 10am-5pm; last entry 1hr before
closing; £5.50; tel 01433/620512). This is, at 600-feet below ground,
the deepest cave accessible to the public in Britain. That said, there's
precious little to see, with the main drama coming with the means of
access itself - down a hundred dripping steps and then by boat through a
quarter-mile-long claustrophobic tunnel that was blasted out in search
of lead. At the end lies the Bottomless Pit, a pool where 40,000 tons of
mining rubble were dumped without raising the water level.
The other two caves are the world's only source of the sparkling
fluorspar known as Blue John . Highly prized for ornaments and jewellery
for the past 250 years, this semi-precious stone comes in a multitude of
hues from blue through deep red to yellow, depending on its hydrocarbon
impurities. Before being cut and polished it must be soaked in pine
resin, a process originally carried out in France, where the term bleu-jaune
(after its primary colours) provided the source of its English name. The
Treak Cliff Cavern (daily: March-Oct 10am-5pm; Nov-Feb 10am-4pm; last
entry 40min before closing; £5.50; tel 01433/620571), a few hundred
yards along the hillside from Speedwell, contains the best examples of
the stone in situ and a good deal more in the shop. This is also the
best cave to visit in its own right, dripping - literally - with
stalactites (some up to 100,000 years old), flowstone and bizarre rock
formations, all visible on an entertaining forty-minute walking tour
through the main cave system. Tours of the Blue John Cavern (daily:
Easter-Oct 9.30am-5.30pm; Nov-Easter 9.30am-dusk; £6; tel 01433/620638)
dive deeper into the rock, with narrow steps and sloping paths following
an ancient watercourse through whirlpool-hollowed chambers down to the
Dining Room Cavern, where a former owner once held a banquet. Blue John
Cavern is another fifteen minutes' signposted walk beyond Treak Cliff,
and there's direct access off the A625, just west of Castleton.
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