Too cheesy for my taste: Cheddar caves

I didn't have too much time after the visit to the ski slope (link, alt. link), so a proper a cave exploration was out of the question. I had found an easy(ish) wild cave that I could have visited, but instead I opted for visiting two show caves in Cheddar, at the foot of the Cheddar Gorge: Gough's Cave and Cox's cave. They are interesting caves, the former medium-sized and the latter small, but both have some beautiful cave forms. But ... Gough's was decorated with bright, illuminated-from-the-inside cartoon characters.

Here's an example, though this was perhaps the most nice one, the rest were more about the characters:

Another example:

And it wasn't one or few places here and there. It was the entire cave filled with these.

This was clearly done to cater for kids. Interesting lights and characters, but ... call me old-fashioned but maybe the kids would also have admired even the plain cave with awe. But maybe that's just my opinion. Also, admission was 25 pounds, which covered both caves but was in my opinion a bit steep.

And Cox's was not, but they still used colorful projections and lights to lit up the cave. Of course this was interesting and pretty. Alongside the visuals  they also had a guide-less guide voice that made you listen a story about different parts of the cave and then made you move to the next station. Again maybe the cave could have shown and spoken itself, without needing an automated megaphone and beams of light?

Also, both caves but particularly Cox's suffered from overexposure of the cave to light, there plants and moss growing there left and right.

Anyway, I'm still very happy I visited these caves. I'm always happy visiting any cave, and these two were actually an interesting experience, and of course were nice cave by themselves too.

The Cheddar Gorge (which I didn't explore further) and the town also seemed super nice. I would have wanted to sit in this cafe between the two caves for a bit, for instance:

Gough's cave is 3405 meters long, and at N 51.281997 W 2.765617. More information here and here.

Cox's cave is a 100 meters long cave, and at N 51.281727 W 2.768899. More information here and here.

Photos from Gough's were everything before the above cafe pictures, and then these:

They were also aging Cheddar in the cave:

Entrance:

Photos from Cox's:

Entrance:

This article has also been published at Planetcaver.net here. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot. Photos and text (c) 2026 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.