The excavations at the cave of Dog Hole are something of a mystery. Robert Laing, a Newcastle doctor, is thought to have carried out excavations here that practically cleared out the cave.

]]> The first known find from Pin Hole was a palate and milk teeth of a young woolly mammoth made by A.T.Metcalfe. This and subsequent finds prompted further exploration. In 1875 Magens Mello, the Rector of Brampton in Derbyshire, and Thomas Heath, the curator at Derby Museum, dug into the cave up to five metres from the entrance. Following this work, Leslie Armstrong removed a large quantity of the cave deposit between 1924 and 1936. However, Armstrong did not completely empty the cave but finished digging about half way along its length where he preserved a 4 metre high section.

]]> Towards the top of the cliff, on the northern side of the gorge, are three caves known as The Arch (also known as Lions Mouth), Cave 7 and Cave 8. Apart from a small trench dug at the back of the Arch Cave by Simon Collcutt in 1974, only casual finds from this cave have been made by Leslie Armstrong, Rogan Jenkinson and Roger Jacobi. The bone remains consist mainly of bison with rare remains of wolf and reindeer. There is no evidence for people using this cave.

]]> Several archaeologists dug here starting with the Victorian antiquarians, Revd Magens Mello, Thomas Heath and Professor W.Boyd Dawkins, in 1875 and 1876 and Robert Laing before 1889. Mello, Heath and Dawkins concentrated their work in the western chamber and took just over a month to remove most of the cave deposit.

Laing, on the other hand, appears to have removed deposits from the both the central and rear chamber and possibly the eastern chamber. In 1969, John Campbell carried out a small-scale excavation in the entrance area and on the scree slopes leading up to the cave. More recently, Rogan Jenkinson directed excavations within the cave in 1981 on remnants of deposits left by earlier archaeologists.

]]> One of the first people to dig here was a man from Creswell village. He was acting on information from his wife who had a dream of buried treasure in the cave. Not long after this event a hippopotamus tooth was offered for sale.

These finds prompted the Reverend Magens Mello and Professor W.Boyd Dawkins to excavate here in 1878, work which was supervised by Donald Knight. They removed almost all of the deposits from the chamber and side passage. Since that time, Leslie Armstrong in 1923-1925, Charles McBurney in 1959 and 1960, John Campbell in 1969 and Simon Collcutt in 1974 have carried out excavations. This later work concentrated on undisturbed deposits on the scree deposits that led up to the cave.

]]> This is a long rockshelter which has a sunny aspect and would have been attractive to hunters camping at Creswell Crags. The shelter gives about a 2 metre overhang and runs for about 22 metres along the base of the cliff.

]]> This small cave by the lake was used by the Duke of Portland in the 19th century to moor his boat

When Leslie Armstrong made his initial exploration at the cave, he unfortunately used explosives to remove the hard concrete floor which sealed the softer cave-earth deposits. Although he records bone fragments from this work nothing survives today. The location of this cave with water running into it from the lake, led both Armstrong and subsequent archaeologists to abandon their work due to flooding.

]]> Before this cave was excavated it was used as a byre for cattle in the late 1800s. These animals disturbed the sediments from the front of the cave and exposed bone remains. Mr Tebbit, foreman at a nearby quarry, used to collect bones and it was these finds which led to the excavation of the cave.

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