28th May 2026 - What's Goyden on here then?

For as long as I can remember a trip to Nidderdale has been on our wish list, sporting as it does a trio of caves that should, I'm told, be on every LCMLA level 2's ticket. The coinciding of a period of dry weather and a holiday Thursday aswell as a well timed MOT and service for Tony's car meant the dream could become a reality.

A brief cuppa and slice of, as ever, delicious rhubarb and custard cake at Mike's, a garage pick up of Tony and we were East bound on the Skipton road. Landmarks becoming less familiar and the steady flow of travellers' bow topped wagons heading towards Appleby gave an exotic feel to our Oriental adventure. Past Grassington and I really had no idea where we were anymore, the moors becoming bleaker, their gritstone crenellations silhouetted against cloudless blue skies. Surely there can't be any caves here, it's the wrong sort of rock? The sign for Stump Cross caverns soon put paid to that theory.

We descended into the metropolis of Pately bridge and began the steady climb into Upper Nidderdale before parking next to a bricked up railway tunnel within sight of our first objective of the day, Manchester Hole. Hawthorne in full bloom shone bright in the late May sunshine as we crossed the stiles to the entrance. The cool darkness below in stark contrast to the warmth and daylight above. Tony, keen to fully explore with the aim of taking trips here in future headed up stream while Mike and I headed down.

The entrance to Manchester pot

If this was your first experience of caving I'm sure you'd be impressed, it's a stunning stream way. At a knotted rope up a mud slope Tony and I chose to take the high road through the main chamber while Mike took the low through the stream. With no other navigational choices to make we shortly arrived at the sump pool with seemingly no way on. Fortunately we had an ever excellent Braemoor guide with us and quickly located the obscured, wet crawl through to the actual sump chamber.

Tony exiting the damp passage through to the sump chamber

Mike too, enjoying the cool waters

From here the guide that I'd read took you to the surface at Bax pot in just three, fairly innocuous sounding sentences to complete a lovely trip, exactly what Tony was wanting for his clients and what I was expecting for our day out. Mike though had with him a newer guide and a different plan.

He read out the next part of the description and following his instructions I returned down towards the stream. I don't think the next bits of passage will be on Tony's tour itinerary. There's low bits, there's wet bits and there are low, wet bits, even in fact some low, loose, wet bits. Worryingly when we arrived at the 'jumble of boulders tied up with string', the string was missing and Mike quoting other Sound of Music lyrics to me didn't do much to ease my nerves. Mike kept us on track with the description and after a final shimmy through some boulders we were in the vastness of Goyden. Locating a chain that was to aid our exit we stashed our gear and consulted the guide and survey. Tony's survey had a lovely tour, suitable for a group, marked on it but oncd again Mike had found an alternative trip suggestion.

Getting our heads around the layout of Goyden pot

The route is well described by Braemoor so I'll leave you with the general gist. Follow crawly passages either with flood detritus on the floor or improbably wedged in the ceiling via a number of rope and ladder climbs and over the occasional pipe traverse. At all times marvel at the incredible chert nodules and try not to worry too much about the fact that wherever you are the cave probably floods to the roof.

At one point we emerged out of the impressive, main Goyden entrance and basked in the Sun. All too soon though we retraced our steps and then followed a boulder slope back down to our bags. From them we enjoyed a vertical adventure playground climbing chains, ladders and the odd pile of stacked boulders. The vertical shenanigans finished at a lidded entrance and we emerged from Church pot into a small dry valley. Where we were now in relation to the main valley I had no idea (in actual fact we were still in the main valley), but my attention was drawn to a couple of Kites seemingly annoyed by the behaviour of a Buzzard.

Not quite sure where we were and also not quite sure where we were going we headed back to the road and while Mike returned for the car Tony and I began making our way down the valley. It's worth noting that up to this point we'd been carrying our SRT gear and a couple of ropes for the pitches in New Goyden. Personally if I were to do the trip again I'd leave them on the surface and collect them only when heading for New Goyden.

Taking on our usual roles when we play 'Hunt the cave', Tony and I slithered around on some boulders in the stream bed while Mike located the entrance and made the most of the shade from the tree above it. Our well carried SRT kit was finally donned and we made our way down the short entrance crawl to the top of the pitches. These are rigged from new looking bolts all except for the deviation, a more traditional looking bolt.

At the foot of the pitches we found ourselves in a streamway of impressive proportion. Upstrezm quickly led to a duck allowing access to the upstream sump. Nicely warmed from our brief sojourn in the Sun I was reluctant to get wet again so turned and headed back with the stream's flow. Again not far from our ropes we found the frothy downstream sump. A muddy climb just before it however led up to a brief wriggle through boulders and the impressive Planetarium. A small inlet trickle, Astronomers' passage led to further evidence of the Black Sheep diggers handywork: a low dig following the inlet with some impressive dry stone walling and another aluminium ladder leading up a small aven. Wratch about completed we ascended our ropes with Tony kindly taking on derigging duties. On the surface we once again basked in the now, early evening, Sun before the short wander back to the car. 

While it was great to visit three totally new caves in a day the highlights for me were the connection between Manchester and Goyden and Goyden pot itself. It's a truly remarkable place which, while devoid of any calcite formations of note, more than makes up for this with some unique rock architecture.