In reply to Dave Musgrove:
Victoria Cave was excavated in the 1870's and is an internationally important archaeological site. I wouldn't say they "desecrated" the site but things were indeed done very differently then at a time when the world was trying still trying to break out of the biblical straightjacket of creationism and ideas about noah's flood being responsible for geological features. Some of the world's foremost geologists took an interest in the cave. I think the archaeologists did the best they could with the knowledge they had at the time. The Romano British material from Victoria Cave was found only a matter of feet below what is now the roof of the cave since the place was almost full up to the roof with sediments when discovered and was only found by chance when a dog ran down a small hole. The cave was emptied over a period of seven years by some guys with wheelbarrows and sieves, which seems almost unbelievable when you see the size of the place now.
I have just been speaking to my friend who owns the land above Langliffe Quarry who says there is an access argument there over getting to the quarry. Another farmer owns part of the crag but doesn't like climbers; Craven District Council own another part of the quarry face and are worried about insurance liability so they don't encourage climbing there - also there is apparently no proper right of access to the foot of the crag from the bottom. So climbers have been approaching across my friend's land but in doing so have broken a dry-stone wall down to get to the quarry. Some time ago he told the BMC that he didn't mind climbers crossing his land (as he is a very reasonable man) so long as a proper stile was put over the wall to protect it. Nothing happened on this score so in effect no-one is exactly ecstatic about things! It really wants sorting out one way or another, preferably in favour of us climbing types!
Of course, all of this wasn't helped when during a University of Bradford archaeology field school I was on in summer 2002, a first year student went illegally AWOL early one morning and his smashed up body was found that evening at the bottom of Langliffe quarry. I was getting to know him quite well and as you can imagine it wasn't the happiest of events. Christ knows what he was up to but he won't do it again. We are a bloody nuisance us archaeologists you know!