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Gorton's Rift

34B Budbury Close, Bradford on Avon.

The quarry is named after the deep rift at end of a quarry passage. The 22 metre deep rift is a major gull feature within the cambered strata at the end of the right hand branch of the mine. Gorton's Rift is located at the rear of a private garden and the quarry is accessed through a stone arch. The quarry comprises basically of a small loop of passages and the rift. There is evidence within the quarry of two additional backfilled entrances.

Alternative Names: Bradford Pit, Gorton's Rift, Wine Street Quarry Cave, Wine Street Terrace Quarry Cave

Notes: The rift was first descended in 1962 by the BEC - "A considerable quantity of tackle had been brought, which included all the ladder which the B.E.C. could muster at the Belfry, plus a couple of thirty foot lengths of lightweight ladder borrowed from the S.M.C.C. together with a hundred and twenty feet of full weight nylon lifeline belonging to the B.E.C. and Roy Bennett's '120' half weight climbing rope - all of this was assembled at the entrance to the rift, which appeared as a vertical gash in the end wall of the main tunnel."

The quarry is a bat roost and the bats sometimes roost in the rift itself. For both conservation and safety reasons, this site is unsuitable for recreational caving.