Cheddar Gorge

The Cheddar Gorge (Cheddar Gorge) is one of the most visited landscapes in the county of Somerset, 30 km southwest of Bristol. This spectacular gorge with its up to 140 m high rocks is the largest, if not the whole of Britain. The interior of the gorge with its numerous caves and openings in the rock walls is just as impressive. Finds of prehistoric remains of the first inhabitants of Great Britain also come from here.

The gorge and its caves have been shaped by glacial meltwater from various ice ages over the past 1.2 million years. The Yeo River, which has deeply carved the gorge, still exists, but it flows underground today. He has formed limestone caves; the two largest of them, Gough's Cave and Cox's Cave, are open to visitors. A complete 9,000 year old skeleton of an early cave dweller, the Cheddar man, was found in Gough's Cave.

Cheddar Gorge
 Cheddar Gorge

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A fairytale landscape
The rocks and slopes of the Cheddar Gorge form a mosaic of habitats, overgrown with bedstraw, meadow rhombus and a rare type of clove, the pink cheddar carnation. This landscape is as beautiful and enchanting from above as it is dark and mysterious below. Large colonies of bats live in the caves and cavities, surrounded by the gnawed bones of the cannibalistic cave dwellers.

In this kind of landscape, humans inevitably develop the craziest fantasy. The author J.R.R. Tolkien happened on his honeymoon here to this place in 1916. Although the trilogy The Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand, the author found inspiration in Somerset. In particular, the description of Helms Klamm in the scene The Two Towers of Cheddar Gorge is amazingly similar! Today, as a visitor, you can take part in an underground adventure tour entitled The Crystal Quest through the Cox's Cave, inspired by Tolkien's fantasy world. The rest of the cave with its reflecting lakes and limestone sculptures is illuminated in fairytale colors, accompanied by mysterious songs from hidden speakers.

 Cox's Cave
The Cheddar man
The Cheddar man, whose 9,000-year-old skeleton was found in the Cough's Cave, was not the first inhabitant of the cave. Remains of a 12,000-year-old man were actually found here. However, the Cheddar man awakens the best imaginations because his skeleton is the oldest fully preserved human skeleton ever found in Britain. The connection to this first “complete British” not only has an emotional component; When comparing the DNA with that of Cheddar's schoolchildren in the late 1990s, it also emerged that this person was probably a distant ancestor of two children. The hole in his skull and the traces of cannibalism discovered in the cave awaken the worst ideas about his extinction.