What are the caves like round Castleton for a visit with the kids? Are they extensive? I was riding round there this weekend and there seemed to be various caverns open to the public.
My lad is 3.5 – if the caves don’t sustain his interest are there other activities we could bail out into round Castleton? Cheers for any advice.

Been donkeys years since I went down one but I’d say yeah they are worth a go.

One of ’em (Speedwell??) has a boat ride in it for a bit of added excitement… I’m sure there’ll be plenty of info and pictures and stuff if you search this here interweb thingy…

I enjoyed them – some fun descents and little boat journeys down underground canals (BlueJohn Caverns?)

Speedwell cavern is the one with the boats – yes good fun for kids any of them really – occupy a morning
Peak Cavern is also signed the Devils Arse so thats a hit straight away
The Blue John one is little less show cave

Speedwell is good – nice underground boat journey – I loved it as a kid.

I think they are all basically a short guided tour, something like 45 minutes, probably the right sort of length for a kid.

Not good if he’s scared of the dark – you can’t just take a scared kid back out when you are 15 minutes of boat journey + steps away from the start, you have to wait for the tour to finish.

The Devils Arse is supposed to be good if you like League of Gentlemen as it is just like the sketch from there, but possibly not so good otherwise.

Lots of nice walks round there too, hills to run up and down etc.

The castle is a good ruined one, you can clamber up bits of it, but possibly a bit of a waste of money paying to take a 3.5yr old in though, as they’d probably be just as happy running up and down the hill round the corner.

Joe

Thanks. The underground boat tour sounds awesome – good point about the darkness though. Our kid is a bit scared of the dark at the moment – he’s been round caves abroad (well lit) and enjoyed them but if it meant sitting still on a boat it might be a problem.

just read the age bit – depends what direction you come from/to as Chatsworth isn’t so close but has 2 adventure playgrounds one for little un’s – you pay to go in but its not the same as going into the house

or park at the garden centre on A road from Hope to Hathersage (by the narrow bridge, has a caving/walking shop hitch & hike) and go to cafe and look at the fish for sale! if you take the path in far corner of carpark from garden centre under the railway line you pop out on Bamford sports field with a good kids playground at far side

I wouldn’t describe the boat ride as awesome, but is still worth a go.

There’s always the Wildlife reserve not far down the road in Chapel le Firth as well. Think its called the Chestnut centre. Mainly focussed around Otters but they do have other animals.

I was in Speedwell at around 3am on an adventure race a few years back. We weren’t allowed to use the boats – the water is about waist deep and freezing!

Lovely cavern in the middle though, but I didn’t spend enough time there to fully appreciate it…