Natural Wonders

England

Buttertubs and Hardraw Force - Situated in one of the loveliest parts of the Yorkshire Dales, the Buttertubs are a series of very deep potholes near the summit of Buttertubs pass.

Hardraw Force near the village of Hardraw ('force' is a Scandinavian word meaning 'waterfall') is the highest unbroken waterfalls in Great Britain.

The Cheesewring on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall near the Hurlers Stone Circles is a granite balancing act that has the appearance of having been placed there by hand.

Dover - the white cliffs of Dover - the symbolic gateways to England.

Flamborough Head on the Yorkshire coast - one of the most beautiful walks in Yorkshire and exactly 362 miles from Lands End and 362 miles from John O'Groats. White cliffs full of coves, caves and promontories.

Gordale Scar in the Yorkshire Dales - A desolate place which appealed to the Romantic poets. Wordsworth wrote a sonnet about this vast chasm with its impressive waterfalls.

Henhole - one of the most dramatic parts of the Cheviot Hills - the Henhole is an unexpected chasm in the granite hills of the Cheviots. A stream flowing through the cliffs creates a number of waterfalls which are worth seeing not for their size but for the diversity of their cascades - the only life and movement in the dark valley.

High Force, despite its name ('force' meaning waterfall is a word of Scandinavian origin) is by no means the highest waterfall. It falls about 70 feet down a series of granite steps but has an appearance as impressive as any waterfall you will find in Britain.

Lands End - the most westerly cliffs of England are a national institution. Tourists flock to look over the edge. Beyond the sea once lay the land of Atlantis after which that sea was named. Later histories also record the Cornish Atlantis, the sea-covered land between Lands End and the Scillies. This fabled Atlantis, also known as Lyonesse has been seen by many a Cornish fisherman who claim that the tolling of bells from submerged churches can still be heard in the sea off Lands End.

View of Lindisfarne, Northumberland, England brought to you by uktouristinfo.com the definitive guide to UK tourist information - the complete UK and British tourism and travel resource

Lindisfarne - Holy Island has a magical atmosphere and was once the cradle of Christianity in Britain. Lindisfarne's most distinctive feature is a volcanic rock called the Beblowe on which the castle is built. Lindisfarne is a part-time island because at low tide it is possible to reach the island by road.

The Logan Stone - one of the most famous rocks in Cornwall, the so-called 'rocking stone' (the Logan Stone has not been easily rocked since it was dislodged from and then returned to its precarious perch in 1824). The Logan Stone in its romantic setting is especially mysterious in the mist.

Lydford Gorge is a vast fissure in the earth at the edge of Dartmoor. The swirling savagery of the black waters of the Devil's Cauldron can be watched from specially placed planks (but be careful - the spray can make these precarious planks quite wet) while a more delicate fall at the western edge of Lydford Gorge is the white water of the White Lady waterfall which appears to freefall for about 30 metres.

Malham Cove is a natural amphitheatre in the green of the Yorkshire Moors with a spring of water which gurgles out at the foot of the Cove. At the top of Malham Cove is a series of white limestone 'pavements' - the famous 'clints' Between these are depressions a few metres deep called 'grykes' which will eventually become vertical caves. Wordsworth was inspired to write a sonnet about Malham Cove.

The Norber Erratics on Norber Moor in Yorkshire are slate and sandstone boulders sat on natural white limestone clints. While most of the limestone surface has been eroded by the wind and rain, the area beneath each of the Norber Erratics has remained protected by the rocks themselves leaving each of the Erratics sitting on a little platform raising them 30-40cm above the level of the surrounding landscape. The Norber clints separated by deep grykes are even better than the clints at Malham Cove. They are brilliant white and those on the western side merge seamlessly with the man-made walls giving the impression that you are on a petrified sea. Another reason to visit Norber Moor is that the moor is a great place to escape the tourist crowds.

Old Harry Rock - in ancient times the chalk ridge from Purbeck Downs stretched right across to the Isle of Wight. The sea gradually eroded the ridge created the Isle of Wight and the Needles - the remaining stumps of the ridge which stretch out from the island to the sea. Old Harry Rocks are the mainland equivalent of the Needles. The tallest of these is Old Harry Rock itself ('Old Harry' is a polite name for the Devil). Thomas Hardy gave a romantic description of this coastline in The Hand of Ethelberta. On the same stretch of coastline as Old Harry Rock is the magnificent Lulworth Cove where Keats wrote his last sonnet and about 1 mile up the coast from Lulworth Cove is the Durdle Door ('Durdle' and 'Door' are derived from archaic words meaning 'water') a fantastic natural arch over the sea. From the sea, the Durdle Door leads to Dorset (another word with the same root) Near Lulworth Cove is a petrified forest with hollow fossilised stumps big enough to fit about 5 people inside.

Peak Cavern in Derbyshire's Peak District is fronted by the Devil's Hole said to be the biggest cave entrance in the world at 20 metres high, 60 metres wide and 100 metres deep. It is set in limestone cliffs topped by the ruins of Peveril Castle. The poet Byron and Queen Victoria visited the system of caves which leads for about a mile into the hill through the Devil's Hole. The link with the Devil is followed in many of the names of formations in the caves (the Devil's Cellar, the Styx, Pluto's Dining Room, etc.) and older names for the cave include Old Horny's Cave and even the Devil's Arse!

Roche, north of St. Austell. The miniature granite mountains of Roche form a strange lunar landscape in contrast to the man-made hills (a byproduct of clay-mining) in the south. The ruins of a granite chapel dedicated to St Michael cling chameleon-like to the rocks. From the chapel there are some impressive views of the dark rock outcroppings and clay mine deposits of Roche.

St Michael's Mount, one of the most beautiful and mysterious places in Cornwall. From the hill to the east St Michael's Mount seems like a castle surrounded by a moat from a tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. From the relative closeness of Mount Bay however, it is a natural fortress upon which a cluster of buildings have been perched. St Michael's Mount may perhaps have come into being as a result of the same catastrophe that sunk the land of Lyonesse, the Cornish Atlantis.

The Seven Sisters of the chalk headland of Beachy Head near Eastbourne stretch from Birling Gap in the east to Cuckmere Haven in the west. These sheer white cliffs drop to a depth of 200 metres while their tops undulate softly up and down. Starting in the west the Seven Sisters are Raven Brow, Short Brow, Rough Brow, Bran Point, Flagstaff Point, Bail's Hill and Went Hill Brow. Until they were worn away by the sea (the last one disappeared in 1854) the Seven Sisters had seven brothers known as the Seven Charles.

Treak Cavern and Winnats Pass in the Peak District. Winnats Pass is one of the most beautiful natural passes in Britain and appears to have been deliberately modeled from the limestone hills by a giant sculptor. Winnats Pass however hides an even more impressive wonder in Treak Cavern famed for the veins of Blue John stone unique to the Peak District. Within the show-caves of Treak Cavern are the Dream Cave and Aladdin's Cave which have some of the best displays of stalactites in Britain.

White Scar Caves. These showcaves on the Yorkshire Moors accompany Ingleborough Cave with its quarter-mile chambers of stalagmites and stalactites and Gaping Gill, a chamber said to be big enough to fit York Minster inside. White Scar Caves contains almost all the possibilities for underground formations including stalagmites and stalactites, an underground stream and 2 fantastic waterfalls where you will end up wet with the spray. Some of the stalactites have numerous arms reaching out in different directions. It is believed that the system extends all the way to Gaping Gill (about 5 miles) but much of this is still unexplored and is not open to the public.

Wales

Cader Idris

There are 3 peaks of Cader Idris - Pen y Gadair, Cyfrwy (the Saddle) and Tyrau Mawr which together form a giant's chair. At the foot of the Cader peak is a vast chasm filled with water that is the reputedly bottomless lake Llyn Cau. It is worth spending some time at Cader Idris to watch the mists swirl in (even or a sunny day) although it is said that anyone who spends the night there will wake up either a lunatic or poet!

Dan-yr-Ogof and Cathedral Cave

Dan-yr-Ogof meaning below the cave is a vast cave system partly open to the public as showcaves. It is one of the finest series of caves in the UK. The cave it is actually below is called Ogof-yr-Esgryn. The showcaves themselves contain a number of interesting features including the 'Flitch of Bacon' - a hanging sheet of calcite, the 'Alabaster Pillar' (a stactite and stalagmite which have joined together over the years to form a 2 metres high pillar). The Cauldron Chamber has a 6 meters long sheet of calcite hanging from the roof. The Cathedral Cave is the largest chamber in any illuminated showcave in Britain. Apart from its sheer cathedral-like size, the flowing calcite has created formations within the Cathedral Cave known as the 'Organ Pipes'. It contains its own waterfalls, lake, columns and multi-coloured stalactites and the 'Dome of St Pauls where it becomes as high as the cathedral after which it has been named.

Devil's Bridge

Elegug Stacks, The Green Bridge of Wales, and St Govan's Head

Pistyll Rhaedr

Snowdonia

Swallow Falls