Priddy Mineries

Priddy Pools (grid reference ST545510) is a 52.7-hectare (130-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Priddy in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, notified in 1972. The pools provided the water supply for the Priddy Mineries which is now a Nature Reserve.

Stock Hill (grid reference ST5551) is a Forestry Commission plantation on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England. It lies to the south of the B3135 which runs from Cheddar Gorge to Green Ore and is the largest woodland on the Mendip plateau. A number of wide rides run through the forest. In addition parts of the woodland are clear-felled, and in these areas a number of plant species associated with heathlands and acidic soils are present. It is notable as a site for scarce birds, and as a result is popular with birdwatchers. It is one of the main breeding sites in northern Somerset for nightjars. In addition, long-eared owl nests here annually. An "easy-going trail" has been constructed to enable access for people with mobility issues. The trail starts opposite the entrance to the car park and is made up of level compacted gravel. It is dedicated to Ian McArdle of the Cheddar Valley Access Group. He was a disabled man who loved Stockhill Forest and the Priddy Mineries opposite and inspired the trails creation.Some of the trails form part of the national long distance footpath, the Monarch's Way. Adjacent to the woodland on its western side (across a minor road) is Priddy Mineries, a nature reserve of the Somerset Wildlife Trust.

St Cuthbert's Swallet is the second longest, and most complex, cave on the Mendip Hills, in Somerset, England. It forms a major part of the Priddy Caves system and water entering this swallet re-emerges at Wookey Hole. St Cuthbert's Swallet is part of, and lies underneath, the Priddy Pools Site of Special Scientific Interest.It is named because of its location in the St Cuthbert Out parish of Wells, and was originally called St Cuthbert's Pot.

Priddy Nine Barrows Cemetery and Ashen Hill Barrow Cemetery are a collection of round barrows, dating from the Bronze Age, near Priddy in the English county of Somerset. They are designated as ancient monuments.The barrows sit on crests of land at either end of a field in an area of the Mendip Hills with several Neolithic remains. They are assumed to be related to the Priddy Circles which lie 750 metres (2,460 ft) to the north. Ashen Hill consists of six bowl barrows and two bell barrows aligned east to west while Priddy Nine Barrows divided into one group of seven round barrows and another pair slightly separated from the others. Excavations in 1815 uncovered cremation burials and grave goods. A geophysical magnetometry survey suggested that there may have been three further barrows.

Priddy Caves (grid reference ST540505) is an Area: 67.6 hectare (167.0 acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Priddy in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, notified in 1965. The entrance to St Cuthbert's Swallet is incorporated in the adjacent Priddy Pools SSSI. The Priddy Caves System contains about 16 km of surveyed cave passages divided between a number of major and minor networks. All the caves are sink hole systems, fed by sink holes at the ground surface. In all the caves, the detailed disposition and form of the passages can be seen clearly to have followed marked lines of natural weakness in the rocks. The three largest networks, Swildon's Hole, St Cuthbert's Swallet and Eastwater Cavern exceed 100 metres in depth. Swildon's Hole is a world-famous example of a shallow depth phreatic cave, which shows a very well developed dendritic pattern of drainage and contains extensive clastic and stalagmite fills. Hunter's Hole is an excellent example of a shaft complex draining a closed depression. This cave differs from the others at Priddy in apparently not having formed as a stream swallet. Cave sediments found within the systems, together with the information which can be deduced from the physical form of the caves, provide geologists with the means to obtain a better understanding of the geological evolution of southern Britain during the ice ages.

Eastwater Cavern is a cave near Priddy in the limestone of the Mendip Hills, in Somerset, England. It is also known as Eastwater Swallet. It was first excavated in April 1902 by a team led by Herbert E. Balch composed of paid labourers and volunteers from the Wells Natural History Society. Progress was initially slow, but by February 1903 Balch and Willcox had discovered substantial passage, following the streamway down to the bottom of the cave. Dolphin Pot was dug in 1940 by the Wessex Cave Club, with Primrose Pot following in 1950. West End series was the most recent significant discovery, in 1983.On 28 August 1910 severe flooding rendered the boulder ruckles unstable, and the bottom of the cave was not reached again for another three years. The cavern was the site of a fatal accident in 1960, when Alan Hartnell was hit by rock-fall. Several areas of the boulder chokes remain unstable.Dolphin ladder pitch also suffered a rock fall and was blocked by a sofa-sized boulder in 1959, but the route was re-opened in 1966.The water resurges at Wookey Hole Caves 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) to the south, and 180 metres (590 ft) below the cave entrance.

Hunter's Hole (or Hunters' Hole) is a cave in the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England. It is behind a pub, known as the Hunters Lodge Inn just outside Priddy where visitors can park. It is accessed via a permanent ladder, about 100m behind the pub in a small dip between some trees. The main cave was first entered after digging by Wessex and BEC cavers in 1954.The cave itself consists of a series of shafts down into the main chamber, named the "railway tunnel". Due to the cave mainly being the ascent and descent, it is used to practise single rope technique (SRT). It is part of the Priddy Caves Site of Special Scientific Interest and described as "an excellent example of a shaft complex draining a closed depression. The roof of the main shaft shows a variety of features such as soil and boulder bridges and scalloped and speleothem lined rifts, all draining the surface depression. This cave differs from the others at Priddy in apparently not having formed as a stream swallet."

Priddy Circles are a linear arrangement of four circular earthwork enclosures near the village of Priddy on the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England. The circles have been listed as Scheduled Ancient Monuments, and described as 'probable Neolithic ritual or ceremonial monuments similar to a henge'.The southernmost Priddy Circle falls on adjoining land to a house and stables that are owned by retired businessman Roger Penny. In 2012 Penny was fined £10,000 after the earthwork was damaged by work he had permitted.

Wurt Pit and Devil's Punchbowl (grid reference ST543537) is a 0.2 hectare (0.5 acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest between East Harptree and the Priddy Circles in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, notified in 1987. Natural England describes the site as: "This site consists of the two largest subsidence depressions in the Mendips, formed by the underlying limestones having been dissolved by subterranean waters causing the surface rocks to collapse into the void. Clear evidence of their being collapsed structures rather than erosional or solutional features, is gained from the fact that the surface rocks at both localities are insoluble, being marls at Devil's Punchbowl and a series of limestones and clays which have been impregnated by silica at Wurt Pit." "The silica-enrichment of the limestones and clays at Wurt Pit (known as the 'Harptree Beds', of early Jurassic age) is also of considerable mineralogical importance since it took place as part of the main phase of mineralisation which emplaced the principal Mendip orefields during Jurassic times. The Harptree Beds show varying degrees of silica-enrichment, and also contain traces of other minerals, such as limonite and yellow ochre (hydrous ferric oxides), barite (barium sulphate), sphalerite (zinc sulphide) and galena (lead sulphide)." Wade and Wade, in their 1929 book Somerset, described the Devil's Punch Bowl as one of the most notable Swallet Holes on the Mendips

Attborough Swallet (also known as Red Quar Swallet) is a cave in Chewton Mendip in Somerset, England. It is unusual for a cave on the Mendip Hills in that it is formed from Dolomitic Conglomerate and Marl rather than ordinary limestone. The main part of the cave was first entered in 1992, although Red Quar Swallet had been dug in the 1930s and the entrance shaft is now a concrete pipe.It takes its name from the Attborough field in which the entrance is situated. Red Quar Swallet comes from the small scale quarrying of red Triassic conglomerate.The underground stream feeding water into the sump flows into Wigmore Swallet.

Swildon's Hole is an extensive cave in Priddy, Somerset. At 9,144 metres (30,000 ft) in length, it is the longest cave on the Mendip Hills. It has been found to be connected to Priddy Green Sink and forms part of the Priddy Caves Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The upper series of the cave compresses many features into a relatively short space. The cave goes far beyond this, however, and the lower reaches of the cave continue to provide challenges for even the most experienced of cave divers. The name may be a corruption of Swithun, an Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester, as the land in the area was owned by St Swithin's Priory in Winchester.

Drove Cottage Henge (sometimes called Hunter's Lodge Henge) is a scheduled monument in the Priddy parish of Somerset, England. It is located 370 metres (1,210 ft) north of Drove Cottage. The site is a ceremonial Neolithic location. Since this henge is one of only around 80 henges throughout England, it is considered to be nationally important.