Great Orme Cave (Sheep Cave)

[Ian A]

Location
SH 772 824

Directions
Go to the West Shore of the Great Orme and park anywhere near the head of the road which travels around the face of the Great Orme. There is a public footpath running along the Orme heading back to town (the entrance to this footpath is by the gate house at the head of the road leading around the Orme). Take this for about ¼ mile until you meet the “Zig-Zag” path heading up the Orme. Take this path upwards and you will see Sheep cave on the left in a craggy outcrop near the top.

Access
None Known

Suggested Equipment
None

Length
70 feet (accessible)

Flood risk
None known

Cave Attributes
A grotto or rock shelter with a glacial sediment filled phreatic passage

Description
This cave is idyllically situated overlooking the sea and the North Wales coast line. It is a reasonable sized chamber with a flat out crawl on a shelf at the rear. This crawl, however, is very wide with a wide arch roof. It is likely that the passage is around 5-6feet tall and about the same width but it is so silted that only a crawl remains. The crawl continues (passable) for around 50-60 feet until it becomes too tight.

However, the floor is glacial sediment and, this being near the top of the Great Orme, is therefore of significant geological interest. It is bizarre that the bronze age miners did not exploit this opportunity in their prolific search of the Orme for malachite.

The cave extends further to an unknown length and it is a prime candidate to be dug/excavated or explored further.

Unexplored Passges
The silted, phreatic, rear passage

Digs
None known.

Links
None known

[Ian A]