Giant
King Arthur's Cave
The giant's bones went to Jamaica, and never arrived.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Limestone cave mouth in woodland
- Legend from
- c.1700 report
- Tone
- Curious
They found a giant's bones in the cave. Then the bones went to sea.
King Arthur's Cave is a limestone cave on the Little Doward above the Wye near Ganarew, inhabited in the Old Stone Age; tools and woolly mammoth bones have been found in and around it. No one knows exactly how it got its name. Around 1700 a skeleton of a 'giant human' was supposedly found inside, but it was lost when a local surgeon, Mr Pye, took it to sea on a voyage to Jamaica and his ship sank. Local superstition also ties the cave to the legend of King Vortigern, said to have made his last stand against Aurelius at nearby Ganarew. One writer suggested it could hide a whole army.