Any information on the caves in Castleton would be greatly appriciated!!
Karst topography is a three-dimensional landscape shaped by the dissolution of a soluble layer or layers of bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite. Castleton is a village in the Derbyshire Peak District, in England. The village lies at the western end of the Hope Valley, on the Peakshole Water stream. Castleton village originally grew around the Norman Peveril Castle at around 1198, and later prospered from lead mining (see Derbyshire lead mining history). This created and enlarged local caverns, four of which are now open to the public as The Devil's **** or Peak Cavern, Blue John Cavern, Speedwell Cavern and Treak Cliff Cavern. A limited supply of Blue John is mined locally. Castleton lies at the northern rim of the Peak District limestone area. The Hope Valley comes up from the east and culminates here in Castleton. It ends at the Winnats Pass. Hope Valley is very nice, but also very well visited and crowded in the summer months. There are four show caves and one wild cave around Castleton, three of them with mining background. The fractures in the limestone contain Calcite and sometimes lead ore and Blue John, a dark blue variety of fluor spar. Odin Vein was mined in the ancient surface mine Odin Mine. Today, the limestone is used to produce cement. One distinguishing feature of Castleton's Karst caves is a huge vein cavity of over 150m high, with a free-hanging drop of 142m from its highest point, making it by far Britain's largest natural shaft. At the top of the cavity the east-west extent is some 90m to 100m and the north-south width is some 15m to 20m.
