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The Great Britain Guide

Caves · South West England

Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest

Free admission

Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest is a cave in the United Kingdom.

Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest, caves in South West England

Wikimedia Commons licence

Plan your visit

Typical visit
45 min–1.5 h
  • Free entry
  • Family-friendly
  • Dog-friendly

About

Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest is a named cave entrance in the United Kingdom. Coordinates: 51.2817°, -2.7689°. This entry is part of The Great Britain Guide, a free, ad-free, open-data tourist directory.

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Protected designations

  • Site of Special Scientific Interest: The Cheddar Complex SSSI
  • National Nature Reserve: MENDIP
  • Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty: Mendip Hills
  • Ramsar wetland: Severn Estuary

Designations sourced from Natural England open data under OGL v3.

From the Wikipedia article

Cox's Cave is in Cheddar Gorge on the Mendip Hills, in Somerset, England. It is open to the public as a show cave. The cave is named after mill owner George Cox who discovered it in 1837, while quarrying limestone for a new building. Cox immediately opened it as a show cave the following year and ran it as a private enterprise until the landowner, Thomas Thynne, 5th Marquess of Bath, took it over at the beginning of the 20th century. It was connected by a tunnel to the adjacent artificial Pavey's Cave in 1987. The cave consists of seven small grottoes, joined by low archways. One section of the cave is known as the Home of the Rainbow, where traces of minerals have been brought in from the surface, and have given the stalagmites a wide range of colour, from nearly black, green, and orange to pure white. The famous French speleologist Édouard-Alfred Martel visited this cave and declared that "out of 600 caves, Cox's was admired the most".

Excerpt from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. See the source article linked in Sources below.

Coordinates
51.2817, -2.7689
District
Somerset
Parish
Cheddar
Postcode
BS27 3QE
Parliamentary constituency
Wells and Mendip Hills

Sources

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Frequently asked questions

Where is Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest?
Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest is in South-West England, United Kingdom (postcode BS27 3QE), in the parish of Cheddar.
Is Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest a protected site?
Yes — Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest is part of the The Cheddar Complex SSSI Site of Special Scientific Interest and the MENDIP National Nature Reserve.
Is Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest free to visit?
Yes, Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest is free to enter.
How do I get to Cox's Cave and The Crystal Quest?
Drivers can navigate to postcode BS27 3QE. It sits within the Wells and Mendip Hills parliamentary constituency.