Damp caves and bats! (Clearwell Caves)

Member Name: pphb

Product:	Clearwell Caves
Date:	04/04/02 (150 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See Op

Disadvantages: See Op

It’s Bank Holiday Monday after a long and lovely Easter Weekend, the weather has been spanking gorgeous… until today that is!

‘I’m bored!’ I moaned

‘Ok, what would you like to do?’ – he’s very patient!

‘dunno, you think of something’

‘Ok, what about family visiting?’

‘Nahhhh, that’s boring’

‘Ok, what about going to the pub for lunch?’

‘Noooooo’

‘Ok’ He then pulls out a leaflet about Clearwell Caves, ‘how about here then?’

To this I get very excited and start chattering about a picnic also, I drive on down to our local Sainsbury’s, which was a really stupid idea on a Bank Holiday – Could it get any busier? NO!!

I arrive back home about an hour after I left with sandwich fillings, crusty rolls, drinks and other bits for our day out. We make a flask of tea and the sandwiches and off we go!

The drive to clearwell caves is lovely, all country driving through fields and small villages. Clearwell Caves is located beneath the Forest of Dean, 3 miles south of Coleford.

The leaflet we had showed a wonderful picture of a cave that looked great, there was water in there too, all looked like a great day out. We got there and parked up, walked down a slope to the entrance, we paid £3.80 per adult and £2.40 for children. The caves are open 10am – 5pm everyday 9th February to 31st October, including Bank Holidays (obviously!)

The cave system is natural but Iron ore has been mined there for nearly 3000 years! 8 large caverns are open to the general public (So they said!) They still produce natural ochre’s, these make natural pigments. The mining is carried out with traditional methods still and only on a very small scale.

They have small displays that show how the mining was done thr
ough the ages. Also showing the development of the mining techniques till the present day. They also have the engine room on show that contains several vintage engines including the 1915 Ingersol Road compressor – used to drive the early pneumatic drills. (All sounds very exciting doesn’t it?!) Anyway, this was boring me and off we toddled down into the cave’s, it all started so well. It was quite dark and damp, you have to remember to wear good shoes with good grips (so I had to leave my 9 inch stilettos at home)

There are bats living in the cave also, but don’t worry, we didn’t see a single one! You walk through the weaves in the caves and read certain bits of information on the wall. There are some good sights, you can pay extra to go on more deep level visits, I wish we had done this bit read nothing about this on the leaflet, when we got home we found out all the info on the website!

You come out in the shop before you know it, I was quite let down by the walk round the cave, you expect so much more, when you come out in the souvenir shop, that’s it! All done!

The highlight of the day was the picnic we had in the car – they didn’t have a picnic area, only a tearoom. We sat in the car and had our lunch then drove home, the drive once again was lovely.

I would recommend you went if you pay extra for the extra tours, I wouldn’t of you were just going to look round the standard caves and mines. If you get excited about old machinery then this place is certainly for you.

Summary: