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The Homepages for the CATTEDOWN BONE CAVES, Cattedown, Plymouth, Devon, England, U.K. Section
17.0. BURNARD'S CATTEDOWN BONE CAVE,
Text revised on 17 March 2006. |
| 17.1.....INTRODUCTION
:
In the last decade of the 19th century, Sparrow's Carpenter Rock Quarry was in the possession of a Mr Lewis Sparrow, who was in the business of limestone quarrying both for the production of dimensional stone for building purposes and for the production of lime. "Carpenter Rock" was a prominent feature of the original natural coastline of the Cattedown Peninsula, now totally removed by quarrying. Section 5. of the Cattedown Bone Caves Webpages offers details of the cave excavations of 1899, carried out at the request of Mr Lewis Sparrow by Mr Robert Burnard. The excavations were undertaken in a cave at quarry floor level. In connection with the cave, Mr Robert Burnard reports "Communicating with the cavity from the surface was a distinct fault or cleft in the rock, through which these relics of a far distant past must have been washed." The purpose of this Section 17. is to offer further details of the extant cave. This objective will not be completed for some time. As additional information comes to light, it will be published herein. Furthermore, it is proposed that the extant cave is to become Phase 5. of the "Cattedown Bone Caves Heritage Site" Project, the beginning stages of which are now underway. Further information on the inclusion of Burnard's Cattedown Bone Cave in this Project will be given in due course. We have (as yet) no 1899 contemporary detailed views of the quarry face or of the cave. However, we have found two monochrome images of this part of the karst peninsula fronting the Cattewater, as recorded from the opposite shoreline at Turnchapel. The amount of quarrying that
can be seen in Photo 17.1. (opposite), is quite astonishing.
A large rift-type cave can be seen in the quarry face directly opposite
the camera position.
Again, in Photo 17.2.
(opposite), more directly opposite Sparrow's Carpenter Rock Quarry, the
commercial development in the intervening 36 years in the now disused quarry
is plain to see. The oil industry is now present with its associated infrastructure
and railway connections.
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fronting onto the Cattewater as recorded from the opposite shoreline at Turnchapel. (Photo : unknown, 1895.)
(Photo : unknown, 1931.) |
| 17.2.....LOCATION
OF SPARROW'S CARPENTER ROCK QUARRY :
The location of Sparrow's Carpenter Rock Quarry can be best described as being the first quarry area immediately west of the Cattedown Wharves and immediately below the Cattedown Road which runs along and follows the line of the top of its northern border. |
(Photo : B. Lewarne, 11 June 2003.) |
| 17.3.....LOCATION
OF BURNARD'S CATTEDOWN BONE CAVE :
The location of the extant parts of Burnard's Cattedown Bone Cave is in the main quarry face above and to the west of the Bitumen Plant. There are other apparently separate caves within this quarry but again, we must reiterate that these are all parts of the same cave system. Interestingly, the extant cave is situated in the quarry face which bounds the largest surviving "unimproved" area of the original Cat Down. Click on the Link below to go to Cattedown
Bone Caves, Section 5.
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A view looking along the main quarry face of Sparrow's Carpenter Rock Quarry, showing the location of the extant (Photo : B. Lewarne, 11 June 2003.) |
| [more to follow] | |.....CBC Section 16.....|.....Cattedown Homepage....|.....Next - CBC Section 18.....| |
