The Doward Caves, Ross-on-Wye 2004

As I have mentioned before, on my original Doward Caves page for this web site, the Doward, Herefordshire, is one of my personal favourite local areas of both scenic and historic interest and I like to visit both the caves and forest at all times of day and night to take photographs of wildlife as well as the rocks and trees themselves. I have been there on many occasions, during all seasons and at times after midnight, during the daylight hours and pre dawn.

Short Movie - King Arthur's Cave to the music 'Palaeolithic Storm'

King Arthur's Cave was one of the first places I photographed for Wyenot, back in 2000 when the idea for a Ross Community web site first occurred to me. To this day the cave has remained one of my two favourite places in the whole world to hide when I want to escape from the pressures of life for a while.

King Arthur's Cave was occupied by Cro magnon man during the Upper Palaeolithic period but would have looked different from the way it looks now. In their wisdom, the Victorians excavated it using dynamite and so the front view has changed considerably. The bones of woolly mammoth and other large animals have been discovered in the cave, as have flint tools

The film contains photos of the cave, surrounding area and of modern day dwellers - bats, spiders and fungi . . .

My first 'Doward' page has a photograph of strange lights included and I asked for help in identifying these. Opinion from various parts of the world, as well as from Great Britain suggested that I had probably photographed fireflies. On consideration, although I am still not convinced that it is something supernatural, there is definitely something, 'strange in them there hills.' Last Monday, 5th July 2004, I went along to the caves again during the day with Tina, my son, Chris and Tina's son Michael, returning again after midnight with Tina and Chris. Below, I have put four of the many photographs I took throughout the period plus a crop from the one of the forest path at night. The third photograph down shows the usual 'human' shape in King Arthur's Cave, which I know is purely a coincidental rock formation but the 'night forest path' photograph shows another strange 'orb' which is actually the clearest of a few I caught on camera that evening. I know without a doubt that it is not a camera apparition. The other photograph of strange orbs on this site was taken with an Olympus E-10 but the camera used on Monday was a Nikon D100 with a high quality 18 to 55 mm Nikon 'ED' class lens and a Nikon SB800 speedlight, which I fired at full power, rather than in TTL mode in order to light as much of the surrounding forest as possible. Both cameras are extremely high quality professional types, not prone to apparitions. My personal guess is that the strange orb might be a distant moth, but the shape inside the circle is rather curious, to say the least. Again, any opinions as to what it is would be greatly appreciated. Please email. What is interesting is that I have only ever experienced this phenomenon in the vacinity of the Doward Caves and nowhere else.

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' William Shakespeare, from Hamlet.

The entrance to King Arthur's Cave, The Doward, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire on 5th July 2004.

Inside a chamber of King Arthur's Cave, The Doward, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire on 5th July 2004.

Inside another chamber of King Arthur's Cave, The Doward, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire at night on 5th July 2004.

The Doward forest path leading past the caves at night.

A crop of the photograph above, showing the strange glowing orb in finer detail. This image is not an enlargement - rather it is a crop from the above photograph and is still reduced in size from the original for web viewing. Absolutely no editing to the image other than adding the copyright notice and size reduction has taken place.