Wookey Hole Caves to 1874 by William Boyd Dawkins, who moved to Somerset to study classics with the vicar of Wookey. On hearing of the discovery of bones by local workmen he led excavations in the area of the hyena den. His work led to the discovery of the first evidence for the use by Palaeolithic man in the Caves of the Mendip Hills. Middle Paleolithic tools have been found in association with butchered bones with a radiocarbon age of around 41,000 years. Herbert E. Balch continued the work from 1904 to 1914, when he led excavations of the entrance passage (1904–1915), Witch's
Wookey Hole Caves Farr a few days later for at a maximum depth of to emerge in the 25th chamber, a desolate, muddy place named "The Lake of Gloom". The 25th chamber represents the furthest upstream air surface in Wookey Hole Cave. From here the River Axe rises up from a deep sump where progressive depth records for cave diving in the British Isles have been set: firstly by Farr () in 1977, then Rob Parker () in 1985, and finally by John Volanthen and Rick Stanton () in 2004. The pair returned again in 2005 to explore the sump to a depth