The Cave System
The Cleeves, or Cleaves Cove (Scots) cave system is situated in the lower bed of carboniferous limestone. It measures around 500 feet if all the passages were put together. The caves are now well above the level of the Dusk Water and lie close to Cleeves Farm and Blair Mill on the Blair Estate. Many of the stalactites and stalagmites have been damaged by visitors. The cave has three practical entrances facing onto the Dusk Water.
A number of older books refer to the romantic sylvan dell of Auchenskeigh, now Auchenskeith, derived from Achadh-na-sgitheach - the field of thorns. The calcareous incrustations in these caves were compared with Gothic fretwork. A number of old limestone quarries lie close to the modern day farm of Auchenskeith, but it is likely that Auchenskeigh is a synonym for Cleeves Cove.
Read more about this topic: Cleeves Cove
Famous quotes containing the words cave and/or system:
“The human mind is indeed a cave swarming with strange forms of life, most of them unconscious and unilluminated. Unless we can understand something as to how the motives that issue from this obscurity are generated, we can hardly hope to foresee or control them.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I’ll be all right; I’ve got a few veg.”
—Margaret Drabble (b. 1939)