Tilly Whim Caves

Tilly Whim Caves consists of three underground quarries at Durlston Country Park, located one kilometer south of Swanage on the Isle of Purbeck. The Isle is a peninsula in the county of Dorset on the south coast of England.

Tilly Whim is probably an Anglicized version of the Irish " Tullow Uamh ". Roughly translated this means " tuber cave ". The name was but possibly from a former stone crusher, called Tilly, as well as the euphemism for a kind of a primitive crane, Whim, which were used at that time derived.

Tilly Whim Caves The is old limestone quarries that were worked mainly during the eighteenth century. It is a limestone, the Purbeck stone which was mined underground. Underground stone mining is relatively rare. The quarrymen and stonemasons worked at quarrying horizontally into the rock wall. They dominated the stone splitting technique with hammers and wedges, some were also stonemasons at the quarry that shaped the stone to cut stones, or sinks and troughs. The building stones were according to their processing directly with the crane, the " Whim ", loaded onto boats and transported to the wharf in Swanage.

The underground block of stone mining was stopped in 1810. During the Napoleonic Wars, the rock was used for the construction of fortifications along the south coast. After the war, in 1815, a drop in demand for this stone and the caves were completely closed. George Burt Tilly Whim Caves opened in 1887 as a tourist attraction. The caves were finally closed in 1976 because of Steinschlagggefahr to the public.

Today, the abandoned quarries are undisturbed roost for bats. The cliffs and rocky reef are nesting sites for seabirds. There are several vantage points in the vicinity of the underground quarries to observe dortaus of marine life.

Tilly Whim Caves have become part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site, it is one of the natural wonders of the world and is known for its fossils.