Llanelly Quarry Pot

Photos by Ian Wilton-Jones, Peter Wilton-Jones, and Tarquin, edits and gallery effects by Tarquin. Some of the pictures in this gallery are over 10 years old at the time of publication, scanned from old prints, and were taken on our very first cave photography trip. Some of them were also damaged during the printing process. I have attempted restoration where possible. You will have to forgive any problems with the photographs; please try to look past them, and enjoy the cave for what it is.

Llanelly Quarry Pot is a small cave located in a scree slope in Llanelly Quarry, underneath the Llanelly Hill village, with an impressively difficult entrance passage, followed by something rare in South Wales; a proper pitch. At the bottom is the 1 km streamway that makes up the vast majority of the cave. Despite being only short and quite immature, it is surprisingly well decorated, mostly with stals that look quite old, and stained with various minerals. It is these that the pictures will concentrate on. Some trivia; the best decorated part of the cave passes almost directly underneath our old house.

1. The bottom of the main 13 metre pitch
2. Midsummer Night's Dream streamway
3. New vs old - a more recent view
4. The streamway
5. Decorated keyhole
6. Straw columns
7. Stalagmite
8. Stalagmite columns
9. Straw carrot
10. Rocky grotto (with Peter looking far younger than he was)
11. Grotto closeup
12. (Naturally) broken straw columns
13. A large stalactite; half white, half orange - and a very young Peter
14. Curtain columns on a ledge
15. Twotone column
16. Straw cluster
17. Stalagmites on a boulder jammed above the stream
18. Another twotone column, this time with the best collection of helictites in the cave
19. Straw grotto
20. An impressive straw and helictite column, which I think is called The Totem Pole