Cave at Windy Knoll, Winnats Head Farm, Castleton

Summary

The cave is sited beside a small disused limestone quarry in Windy Knoll. A fissure cave (now obliterated or lost) was excavated in the 1870s and was found to conatin a large number of late Pleistocene animal bones, including those of bison, reindeer, bear and wolves. The current visible cave entrance has no floor deposits, the whole being rock.

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Description

[1,2] Site of an excavation in the C19 which produced a large assemblage of animal remains of suggested Pleistocene date (2,000,000 BC to 8,300 BC. The cave is adjacent to a quarry at Windy Knoll and the large entrance narrows and dips further back into the cave where it is blocked by a boulder choke. There is a shaft, now capped, in the roof of the cave above the entrance and another shaft further to the south, marked by a fence and a spread of soil and stones where it has recently been filled in. This shaft may have given access to the cave beyond the boulder choke. There are a number of hollows in the vicinity and most of this activity was probably small scale working for blue john in the C18 and C19. The quarry in front of the cave may have produced stone for walling and road making in the area as it is situated between two turnpike roads.

The 1874 excavation of some seven cubic metres of cave deposits produced remains of 40-60 Bison, 20-30 Reindeer,4-5 Grisly Bear and 7 Wolves. Other animals represented were Foxes, Hares, Rabbits and Water Voles. The remains were thought to have been accumulated by animals on migration through the Winnats pass falling into the fissure. The carnivores presumably accompanied the herbivores on migration. The large numbers of Bison and Reindeer were taken to indicate a deposits belonging to the later stages of the Pleistocene the later date being assigned as no extinct species were represented. A further six weeks work was carried out in 1876 which showed the site to have been an ancient swallow hole subsequently acting as a water hole.

Site not found in the excavation index.

During the April 1992 visit to the site by the TPAT, silt deposits were observed towards the rear of the fissure. If not modern accumulation of silts, then steps should be taken to preserve a potentially important archaeological resource. Documentary research might pin-point the exact location of the sampling of the pleistocene deposits during the 1870's-this would aid in the determination of the value of the afore mentioned deposits.

[3] This large cave runs from the side of Windy Knoll Quarry near its entrance. Beyond the large entrance chamber are only short crawls and two small chambers, the whole being 37m long (Gill and Beck 1991 ). The entrance chamber has no floor deposits, the whole being rock, but the back of the chamber, where it becomes a bedding plane, is largely choked with earth; the possibility that these contain archaeological deposits cannot be discounted. A fissure cave, shown on the 1880 Ordnance Survey map as at the west side of the quarry, has now been obliterated or lost. This was excavated in 1874 and 1876 and contained a large number of late Pleistocene animal bones, including those of bison, reindeer, bear and wolves (Boyd-Dawkins 1875, 1877). There is a capped shaft visible in the roof of the cave. A fenced area on the knoll behind the cave marks the site of a backfilled shaft, which may have provided access to lower reaches of the cave not now accessible. These workings are documented as being for both lead and fluorspar (Jim Rieuwerts pers. Comm.).

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