From mouth to bowel

Today I had an opportunity to go to a place I've long wanted to visit. Hoyle's Mouth is a cave that excavation has shown to have been used by Palaeolithic people in the last Ice Age, 25,000 years ago.  Flint tools and bones of  auroch, fox, roe deer, red deer, woolly mammoth, wild horse, hyena, giant Irish deer, cave lion, reindeer, woolly rhino, pig, brown bear, and cave bear have been found there.

It's in the south of the county where a  limestone escarpment overlooks the marshes and inland lagoon  a little way back from the sea and once a rich source of fish, molluscs and birds as well as mammals. We clambered up an unsigned path through the lush new spring growth of the woodland floor until and suddenly the rock face loomed above us and the huge mouth gaped. No notices or warnings, no restrictions or explanations.... 
I had come prepared with a torch and plunged straight in. One or two turns and the daylight faded as the passage narrowed and twisted deep into the rocky entrails of the hill. The walls bulged and narrowed then opened into a series of small caverns where the dripping water has formed translucent coralline deposits that coat the surface and form glassy corrugations that shine in the light. The final chamber, about 40 metres in,  can only be reached by shuffling under a low threshold and once there the fissures leading onwards are too small to admit a human body. The roofs funnels up to a deep  apex. The silence is profound.

 Bats are said to live inside the cave but  none were visible and  the air smelled fresh and clean. Hoyle's Mouth hides no ancient artwork within its depths but there are some initials scratched by long-gone explorers and a few signs of more recent visitors whose purposes may have been varied.

The tunnels  were,  like most subterranean cave systems, hollowed out by running water that dissolved the weakest parts of the rock. As ever I was forcibly struck by their similarity to the inner organs of the body - no wonder we talk of the bowels of the earth. The writhing passages, the dark orifices, the slimy bulges and the secret fissures could not have escaped our ancient ancestors' notice in their resemblance to the structure of the mammalian digestive system, as well as to the birth canal. Forced  and squeezed towards the light we emerged into the world of air and life... from our Mother Earth no less.

Extras show some of the innards and the light at the end of the tunnel.

Apologies for being so rudely neglectful of Blip engagement owing to social obligations this week. I aim to get back to responding and commenting shortly.