# Blebo Caves, Fife, November 2009



## RichardB (Nov 12, 2009)

This was a spur of the moment thing when I was on my way home from the dentist in St Andrews. I've never managed to find the caves until today. I was shown them from the outside in about 1976 but they turned out to be nowhere near where I thought. 

Blebocraigs is a small village near St Andrews in Fife, which has perhaps the worst Wikipedia page of any village in Scotland. There were once several sandstone quarries in the village and the "caves", as they are known locally, are an extension of one of these. It would probably be stretching a point to call it a mine. There were many mills on the nearby River Eden and I'm told Blebo sandstone was particularly good for millstones, as well as being used for building.

I'm still trying to get to grips with lighting, as you can see from the pictures.

The view from outside. Blurry as fook I'm afraid. Edit- now replaced with slightly less blurry version.




As far as you can get from the mouth.




Two methods of roof support, neither of which looks particularly reassuring.




Man-made tunnel. It looks much bigger than it is. To give an idea of the size, that's a small rucksack next to the bright light.




Closer to the outside world again. There are rocks the size of family cars that have fallen out of the roof.  My friend, who grew up in Blebo, tells me he rode his motorbike around here in the 1970s.  




The seam of sandstone. It's very neatly finished, I think stonemasons must have used it to practice on. You can see from my ghosts that the overall height here is a little over 6'




Some cave art. The one on the left appears to be a particularly well-endowed ladyboy.




More here http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/72157622664614791/


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## foz101 (Nov 12, 2009)

Nice one. Is this making use of the flash purchases from the other week?

Looks worth a visit.


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## lost (Nov 12, 2009)

Looks good and not too scary... do they go very far?


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## RichardB (Nov 12, 2009)

foz101 said:


> Nice one. Is this making use of the flash purchases from the other week?



Yes, with varying degrees of success I think. It's all practice though.

There's not a great deal to it but it's definitely worth a look. It's quite a good place to go on dark winter evenings. I'll be taking kneepads next time.

There may be remains of lead mines in the same woods, I need to look into that.


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## mr_bones (Nov 12, 2009)

Looks very dry down there. Nice one Richard


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## RichardB (Nov 12, 2009)

lost said:


> Looks good and not too scary... do they go very far?



Not far at all, I'm not great at guessing distances but I'd be surprised if the furthest point in was as much as 30m from the mouth. Looking at my EXIF data it seems I managed to spend more than an hour and a half down there though. 

It's surprisingly dry, I only wish the paths leading to it were as dry.


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## zimbob (Nov 12, 2009)

I'm liking this 

Might have to take a nosey when I'm down next weekend - could be a nice easyish induction to undergroundage


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## foz101 (Nov 12, 2009)

zimbob said:


> I'm liking this
> 
> Might have to take a nosey when I'm down next weekend - could be a nice easyish induction to undergroundage



I'll try to see if I can be around. I keep meaning to pop down to that Souterrain by Elie you went to Richard. You're full of underground surprises.


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## Sabtr (Nov 12, 2009)

This place is stunning.

From the outside it looks like some rock was removed long ago but the inside - wow! It really is beautiful ... to me anyway. 

Usually when you see wood that appears to be propping stuff - it isn't! Wood is placed where the miners were monitoring movement. If wood fell then the gap widened but if you chose the correct wood then it "talks" to you if it comes under strain. That was a good enough warning to get out. 

The flat stones stacked neatly are called deads. They were of no use to the miners and often they didn't get paid to move them - instead they were used as supports for the roofs. The neater they are stacked then the stronger the support they give.

This is a lovely place to see. Thanks for sharing with us.


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## RichardB (Nov 12, 2009)

Let me know when you're coming down and I'll try to be around too.

I can show you the souterrain any evening you're not busy, with it being dark anyway it's ideal for winter evenings.


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## RichardB (Nov 12, 2009)

Sausage said:


> This place is stunning.
> 
> From the outside it looks like some rock was removed long ago but the inside - wow! It really is beautiful ... to me anyway.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the information and the comments.  It was lost when I straightened the picture but the stones/post are actually holding up a massive slab that's fallen out of the roof.

What do you think about the nicely finished stone at the back? Do you think my guess is right?




foz101 said:


> full of underground surprises.



That's going in my sig.


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## dantheman (Nov 13, 2009)

you'll be passing my two ton bags of sand,with travis perkins on them,sitting at the entrance as im working at the houses further down the track,tis the closest the lorry can get,ive to cart evrything down with tractor


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## zimbob (Nov 13, 2009)

dantheman said:


> ...ton bags of sand,with travis perkins on them....



Sheest man, try 'Cobra'


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## RichardB (Nov 14, 2009)

dantheman said:


> you'll be passing my two ton bags of sand,with travis perkins on them,sitting at the entrance as im working at the houses further down the track,tis the closest the lorry can get,ive to cart evrything down with tractor



I don't remember seeing them but I must have passed them because I was along pretty much every road in the village.


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## Sabtr (Nov 14, 2009)

Dunno about the dressed stone at the face - an ex-stone mason may help out here.

I have seen half finished mill stones on fells. They were literally cut straight out of the rock in situ.


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## tommo (Nov 14, 2009)

nice one, i like the entrance and the dry stone wall building that is down there


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## Pincheck (Nov 14, 2009)

nice lighting Mate


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## dantheman (Nov 14, 2009)

zimbob said:


> Sheest man, try 'Cobra'


i get stuff from them too.but its a bit tight up there for their wagon


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## wolfism (Nov 14, 2009)

Cheers for mentioning this Richard – you made a great job of the lighting, and the "deads" are pretty impressive.


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## jonney (Nov 14, 2009)

Underground quarrying is not realy my thing as we used modern machinery on the surface when we were quarrying but I have seen old photographs of men working the quarry face with picks, hammers and wedges. They would have tried to get the stone as square as possible because they would have been paid (as a friend of mine is - working for a large quarrying company in the North East) by the tonnage they extracted and would have not have been paid for irregular shaped stone because that would have required more work on the surface and cost more money for the quarry owners.


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## spacepunk (Nov 15, 2009)

Cool, nice find RichardB, maybe going down to Fife 2mor for an explore.


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## RichardB (Nov 21, 2009)

Thanks for the comments everybody.  The lighting was a bit hit-and-miss but obviously I posted the pictures at the "hit" end of the scale.

I now realise that the workers must have cut the top face of the sandstone they wanted to extract and then packed it with the slate-like material, when I was down there I assumed that was the natural layers.

Now I think of it the dressed stone was probably standard practice, you would do a layer of blocks, then dress the face ready for another layer. The curved one might have been for a millstone, or there might have been an order for curved blocks.

These woods have at least ten quarries marked on maps from the early 20th century, mostly described as disused. I believe there may be more holes somewhere and will definitely be looking for them. I've seen pictures of another one labelled as Nydie, which is a bit to the North of this, so I'll be looking for that too.


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