Caves of the Mendip Hills The caves are recorded in the Mendip Cave Registry and Archive. The caves which are easily accessible to the public are at Cheddar Gorge and Wookey Hole, but the vast majority of the caves require specialist equipment and knowledge. Many of the caves are gated and operate leader systems in an attempt to reduce the damage caused when the caves are visited. Local caving groups organise trips and continue to discover new caverns. Some estimates put the number of cavers active on the Mendip Hills over a busy weekend at more than 500. Attempts made in the Mendip Hills to
Cheddar Gorge When this melted during the summers, water was forced to flow on the surface, and carved out the gorge. During warmer periods the water flowed underground through the permeable limestone, creating the caves and leaving the gorge dry, so that today much of the gorge has no river until the underground Cheddar Yeo river emerges in the lower part from Gough's Cave. The river is used by Bristol Water, who maintain a series of dams and ponds which supply the nearby Cheddar Reservoir, via a diameter pipe that takes water just upstream of the Rotary Club Sensory Garden, a public