Clean the “Cave of Lost Souls”
A caver says Instagram photo seekers are “killing” a special place after volunteers removed piles of rubbish from a 19th-century mine.
anthony taylor said YouTube videos A video of an old car abandoned in a quarry in Gwynedd has been viewed more than six million times and brought an influx of visitors.
Since then, hundreds of photos of the “car grave” have been posted on Instagram.
However, the people who took the photos also left behind trash and graffiti.
Mr Taylor, 42, from Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, said: “It’s a beautiful place and a lot of people don’t want it to fall into disrepair.”
“Instagram seems to be killing a lot of people,” he says. “People come, take pictures, and leave. [a mess]. ”
The Gevern Slate Mine is located on private land near Collis Oochach. Mining began in 1820 and continued until the 1970s after merging with the nearby Breichgochslate mine, and at its peak he employed 200 people.
image source, Gerald Carton
The “car grave” is illuminated with a shaft of light at certain times.
After the mine closes, old cars and televisions will be dumped in one of the mine’s two main rooms above the lake, and piles of rusting scrap metal will be illuminated by sunlight at certain times of the day. An unusual sight was created.
“It’s a strange environment, probably one of the strangest places in the world,” he recalled of his first visit in 2022.
“How often do you see hundreds of cars underground, shining light from the sun?”
But to get there, we first had to pass through an entrance strewn with discarded garbage bags used by visitors to keep their feet dry.
image source, anthony taylor
Cavers remove graffiti and trash from Göwern in March
“The spray painting started at a depth of about 30 feet (9 meters) and it was bad,” he said.
He said graffiti has worsened in the main room, directed toward cars, and there is more trash on the floor, including discarded psyllium and human feces.
“When you got to the end, it was just a sea of boats, rubber dinghies everywhere,” he said.
“It’s really disgusting, really sad and disappointing.
image source, anthony taylor
Miners etched their initials into the mine in the 19th century, but some of the walls have since been covered in graffiti
“The reason people want to visit places like this is because they see it on the internet and think, ‘That’s a great place to go and see.’ So why throw it in the trash? Is not it?”
Taylor said he and his fellow cavers removed as many dinghies as they could, and on March 22, they carried out a major cleanup with six volunteers.
“Something had to be done,” he said, estimating that his group and another from the YouTube channel “Hell on Earth” removed a total of 30 derelict dinghies.
“The people who go to these places, the influencers they call themselves…they go because they have inherent value. Why destroy that for someone else?”
image source, Gareth Jones
Caver Gareth Jones and other volunteers line up with trash brought to the surface.
He wants to educate people about the value of old mines and worries that sites like Göwern may one day be sealed off.
“If things like this continue to happen, it will be lost forever for everyone.”
During his many visits to abandoned mines around mid-Wales, he found children’s footprints, hobnail boots, tools, miners’ gloves and a 170-year-old hand bar “as originally left by the miners”. I found a car.
“If you can’t see [the value] I don’t know about that.
“I never thought I would have to teach people something like this, but in this day and age, I really do.”