Rediscovering the Caves of Southwest Scotland

Seriously.. caves UNDER A CASTLE. 

 I am compiling a list of rumoured cave-sites to investigate as day-trips from Glasgow. I posted some on the Scottish Caving Forum, so hopefully people will go there and we can plan some muddy picnic days over the next few months. My goal is to find, log and document not only the caves' current locations and dimensions, but also their historical and mythological significance.

May of these are sea caves and frost-pockets, as well as a few man-made constructions (digs, mines, etc.) but I'm not snobbish when it comes to underground features. If it's too dark to see, you need a helmet, and you'll probably get wet and muddy.. it's good enough for me.

I have scoured old OS maps for the word "cave", and marked the NM coordinates of somewhere close to 40 sites across Southwest Scotland that bear looking into. So far, I am trying to compile clusters of cave sites so that it's easy to arrange day-trips or afternoon investigative outings. This might be a welcome change for those who find it difficult to take whole weekends away. Aside from saving on sleeping arrangements, it will also cost less in fuel. yay!

Below is a short list to get those heads whirring:

Sir Andrew Agnew’s Cave

E: 196850.5 N: 560957

http://jimzglebeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/wigtownshire-ramblers-leswalt-to.html

Apparently, Sir Andrew Agnew and his son hid in this cave from Covenanters in 1679

Billy Marshall’s Cave

NX 494 679

Slopes of Cairnsmore, East of Newton Stewart

http://jimzglebeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/wigtownshire-ramblers-billy-marshalls.html

Red Cave

Cairngarroch Bay

http://jimzglebeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/cairngarroch-bay-revisited.html

Rough map of Cave system beneath the castle

Caves beneath 

Culzean Castle

 This guy has done some of our work for us: 

http://jimzglebeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/culzean-revisited.html

Smuggler's caves approaching Culzean Castle from the South.

(See picture at the top of this page)

Cleeves Cove

NS 31778 47434

55°41′29.3″N 4°40′45.6″W

The digestive tract to the left is located on Duskwater SouthEast of Dalry

Cleeves Cove is a Limestone system, approx 500 feet with at least 5 entrances.

Cannibal Feast

Sawney Bean Cave

Home to the legendary Cannibal Sawney Bean and his family who reportedly terrorized the coast for 25 years by abducting and eating travelers.

Bennane Cave
A large coastal chamber walled in on one side with rocks. This cave was a resting place for many travelers over the past two centuries.. or more?

Most recently, it was home to a man who was once a successful banker, but who decided to take to the wild. He lived there until1983.

Below, I have added a Google Map of these locations and a couple of others:

 

View Caves in Southwest Scotland in a larger map

Sawney Bean and Bennane Caves - South Ayrshire

Sawney Bean’s Cave 

 The Tale of the Ayrshire Cannibals

Click the Picture to read Craig Jackson's BBC Article

A cave on the coast near the Ayrshire town of Maybole, Sawney Bean's Cave was reported to have housed a family of cannibals who abducted and ate gullible travellers. Legend has it that the clan was captured and locked up in the Edinurgh Tollbooth before they were all executed: the women were burned at the stake, while the men were dismembered and left to bleed to death from their wounds.

Accounts are unclear as to when precisely this occurred however: Some reference appears in English rumour sheets during the Jacobite rebellion, and it has been suggested that it was simply anti-Scottish propaganda; but perhaps the Bean family actually were Jacobites, and feasting on the passing English was their way of supporting the cause? 

“The place which they inhabited was quite solitary and lonesome, and, when the tide came up, the sea water went nearly two hundred yards into their subterraneous habitation,which reached a mile underground; so that when people,

who have been sent armed to search all the places about,

have passed by the mouth of the cave, they'd have never taken any notice of it,

never supposing any human being being would reside in such a place of perpetual horror and darkness.”

-The Terrible Tale Of Sawney Bean

Here's the most comprehensive account of the Sawney Bean story:

The Terrible Tale of Sawney Bean

Here’s a link I found through the UK Caving forum site:
Sawney Bean's Cave

Cave Location:

The Cave is located down the coast, south of Girvan

A rather inaccurate drawing of Sawney Bean's cave