Monument record 15214 - Uptons Caves, Frodsham

<1> Various, Written Communication to the HER, 27/07/2020 (Written Communication). SCH3756.

Partly natural caves, extended by mining for sand. Named after 19th century owner.
Entracne width 6m
Interior width 28m
Interior Height 3m
Interior depth (front to back) 22m

<2> Sandstone Ridge Trust, 2020, Upton's caves, Frodsham, 27/10/2020 (Report). SCH8939.

Upton's Caves ( also known as Frodsham or Overton Caves.)

The Beneath the Ridge project has identified three neighbouring sites that may be called caves or shelters although accounts from the nineteenth century would suggest that there were more. Some may have been lost through the extensive quarrying in the area. In a letter to the Nantwich Guardian (17/1/1880) the distinguished botanist, James F Robinson of Frodsham, wrote of legends associated with “the huge caverns found here and there scattered over the rocky crags”. In an earlier article written for the Cheshire Observer (10/8/1878) Robinson referred to the “old caverns” and wrote “the visitor who fails to visit these Fairy Caves before leaving the neighbourhood misses the grandest sight nature affords in these vast solitudes”. He describes a “central cave” extending “some distance beneath the rocks” but also a neighbouring “Fairy Cave” associated with a legend concerning fairies spinning flax for an idle girl of the neighbourhood.

Age of the caves is uncertain .Whilst there may have been ancient overhangs and shelters caused by erosion, caves do not develop naturally in the interior of sandstone and so it is certain that Robinson’s caverns had been extended considerably by the hands of workers in more recent times. We know a little about what the workers were doing: they were mining sand.

The earliest date to be inscribed in the cave itself comes from a piece of graffiti made by a J Harvey in 1838 .The interior shape of the roof, supported by pillars reflects the classic “pillar and stall” method of mining and scraping evident in caves throughout the length of the Sandstone Ridge. The sand excavated was of a very desirable white colour and had a variety of uses but was probably used in greatest quantity during the eighteenth century for spreading on and scouring cottage floors, a practice that lasted well into the nineteenth century in rural areas and was probably only superseded by the invention of linoleum in the 1860s.
The name “Upton’s Caves” seems to derive from a family who had owned the surrounding fields from at least 1842.

Believed there was extensive sand-mining conducted after the 1860s. Instead the caves were simply an object of picturesque interest and sight-seeing.

<3> Sandstone Ridge Trust, Sandstone Ridge Trust, https://www.sandstoneridge.org.uk/beneath-ridge/uptons-caves-frodsham-heritage-on-ridge.html (Web Site). SCH8931.

Full article with photos available here