Monmouthshire
, Northern Outcrop - East (Morlais to Abergavenny)
map using leaflet map:
Rising
Cave
Access
The cave is 140m downstream of Devil's Bridge. The entrance is low down on the right bank of the tributary which enters from the right.
Description
A stream flows out of the entrance which leads to a small chamber and then becomes an aquatic exercise via a series of ducks (and an optional sump) to sump in a very narrow rift.
History
Brian Price 1946; AxCG 1964. There does not seem to be any evidence that the name is of any great age: it may be a recent coining from being located in Cwm Puka, and A Midsummer's Night's Dream having 'Puck' as a character (albeit no mention of caves)...
Hydrology
Resurgence for water from Llanelly Quarry Sink and Pot. Liable to flooding, The water resurging from this passage measures 86000 litres per day [.001 cumecs]
Harries, F.J. Shakespeare and the Welsh, pp.196-197 (1919) "
“There is a Welsh tradition to the effect that Shakespeare received his knowledge of Cambrian
fairies from his friend Richard Price, son of Sir John Price of The Priory, Brecon. It is even claimed that
Cwm Pwcca, or Puck Valley, a part of the romantic glen of the Clydach in Breconshire, is the original scene of the Midsummer Night’s Dream, a fancy as light and airy as Puck himself. Anyhow, there Cwm Pwcca is, and in the
sylvan days before Frere and Powell’s ironworks were set up there it is said to have been as full of goblins
as a Methodist’s head is full of piety.”
British Caver 15, pp.135-136, 1946, Price, B., Shakespeare’s Cave
records
