Great Douk Cave
| Great Douk Cave | |
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Entrance to Great Douk Cave
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| Location | Chapel-le-Dale, Ingleborough |
| Coordinates | 54°11′18″N 2°23′20″W / 54.1882°N 2.38894°WCoordinates: 54°11′18″N 2°23′20″W / 54.1882°N 2.38894°W |
| Length | 914 metres (2,999 ft) |
| Discovery | first through trip 1936 |
| Geology | Carboniferous limestone |
| Entrances | 4 (excluding Southerscales Pot) |
| Difficulty | Easy - no pitches or difficulties |
| Hazards | Flooding |
| Access | Permission by landowner |
Great Douk Cave is a shallow cave system lying beneath the limestone bench of Ingleborough in Chapel-le-Dale, North Yorkshire, England. It is popular with beginners and escorted groups, as it offers straightforward caving, and it is possible to follow the cave from where a stream emerges at a small waterfall to a second entrance close to where it sinks 600 yards (549 m) further up the hill. It is a part of the Ingleborough Site of Special Scientific Interest.
The main entrance is in a large collapsed depression, at the bottom of which is the scaffolded entrance to Great Douk Pot, and at the south-eastern end is the obvious entrance to the cave from which a waterfall issues.
The cave can be entered by climbing up the waterfall, or crawling through an open bedding above. To the left, a low passage leads to where the Southerscales Pot stream flows out of a short sump. Straight on is easy walking, passing under Little Douk Pot, an alternative pothole entrance. Eventually a pleasant succession of cascades is met, and the passage passes through areas of fine flowstone. Soon after an oxbow passage, which by-passes a low crawl in the stream, the passage bifurcates.
The main way is to the left, which lowers to a flat-out bedding with the main water entering from a small passage on the left. Straight ahead the passage chokes, but a hole in the roof enters a dry bedding which leads to a junction. Turning left leads to the Middle Washfold entrances.
Great Douk must have been known for a very long time, but the first reference to it may be found in John Hutton's Addendum to the second edition of West's Guide to the Lakes published in 1780. Hutton and party explored the cave for some 50 yards (46 m) beyond the Little Douk Pot window. Thereafter a visit to the entrance at least, seems to have been on every passing tourist's schedule, featuring, for example, in the 1853 edition of Garnett's Craven Itinerary.
In 1850, Howson in his guidebook to Craven reported that it was possible to penetrate beyond Little Douk for "about seven hundred yards", and the Balderstons in Ingleton: Bygone and Present published in 1888 described how the cave can be explored to where "the subterranean river is found to have its branches like a subaerial stream" – i.e. to within a 100 yards (91 m) of the exit at Middle Washfold. The connection with Middle Washfold was made on 1 August 1936 by Norman Thornber and E.J. Douglas of the British Speleological Association and F. King of the Northern Cavern and Fell Club. The connection with Middle Washfold Sink was made by members of the University of Leeds Speleological Society (ULSA) in February 1966.
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