- Tucked away in the picturesque little
village of Knaresborough in Yorkshire, is Mother Shipton's Cave. And the publicity claims that it is "England's
oldest still-surviving tourist attraction". Good luck fact-checking that, but I can't find anything else that's been charging an
admission fee for nearly 400 years. To be fair, good luck fact-checking
anything in this story. It's likely that there was a
woman called Mother Shipton who lived about 500 years
ago, but after that, actual certified references
are shaky at best. She's said these days to have
been a witch and a prophet who lived in a cave with
a pool shaped like a skull that turned things to stone. - We all grow up in this area
hearing about Mother Shipton, and so we grew up with her prophecies. We're talking about the year 1488. There was a young lady
called Agatha Sontheil, was cast out of the
town of Knaresborough at the age of 15 because
she was having a baby. So, she came to these woods and, in the cave, gave
birth to a baby girl called Ursula Sontheil. She was born, it is said,
with a hunched back, but she was also a
very, very clever young lady. At the age of five, she went to the medieval
equivalent of school. She left school at 15. At the age of 20, she got
married to a carpenter by the name of Tobias Shipton. But by this time, she was
having visions about the future and news of her prophecies
was starting to spread. There was a lot of superstition about her. She was already learning
to hate authority, and some people thought
she was a witch. There was a bridge at
the entrance to the park. Now, Mother Shipton said, "When the High Bridge in
Knaresborough has fallen thrice, "the end of the world is nigh." Not to get you worried, it
has been down twice already. But there are more
roadworks across that bridge than anywhere else in this area and I can assure you it's very solid. - We'll never know which
of the many, many stories about Mother Shipton's
life were actually true. She's a folk legend. And unless the laws of physics have
changed in the last few centuries, she couldn't actually see the future. But the pool that turns objects to stone? Well, that is real. And at some point a few centuries ago, some enterprising local decided
to start charging admission. - This park used to belong
to the Royal Family. It was bought by Sir Charles Slingsby
from King Charles I in 1630. Sir Charles was a canny Yorkshire man who decided a pretty penny
could be made from this place, hence guided tours
commenced here in that year. Not me, I have to add! Before he bought this, it
had a very, very bad press. People, being superstitious, would find animal skeletons,
leaves turning to stone, and they actually thought
people would turn to stone. He soon realised he was
onto a good thing here. The waters consist of iron, zinc,
magnesium, aluminium, calcium carbonate. There's a stream which is underground,
and it comes to the surface just before you come down to this well. It comes to the surface,
it goes over the wellhead, and when it drops down,
it'll turn anything to stone because of the various
chemicals it's picked up. And it became
known as a health cure. People would bathe in the
water and drink the water. It it supposed to cure rheumatism. It's not recommendable today
with modern health and safety(!) - This isn't true petrification. The material isn't being
replaced with stone. But at the risk of making
some chemists angry at me, I think it's close enough. The water here is so rich in minerals,
carbonates and sulphates, that it acts like stalactites
forming in a cave or limescale building up
on your plumbing. The teddy bears, the hats,
the whatever's in here, it's steadily being coated in minerals
over and over and over again. And if it's porous, it becomes
solid enough that, yeah, it turns to stone. Chemically, maybe not. Linguistically? Sure, I'll take that. - Now, with regard to the
objects that you see up there, it's got to be anything porous. The smaller the object is,
the shorter time it takes. A teddy would take about three months. Anything bigger would
take six months to a year. It does freeze in winter. Icicles come right down to the floor,
and it's quite spectacular. It's been flowing since the ice age. The other remarkable thing about the water
is it flows at the same rate all the time: 700 gallons an hour.
It never varies, drought or flood. It's again one of the wonders of the well:
it never dries up. - Mother Shipton's Cave is
still a tourist attraction. They still charge money to do
the nice long walk through the park and then come and marvel at the pool
that turns things to stone. But before theme parks, before American roadside attractions, before seaside tourist traps, there was a cave, a good story, and someone who wanted to
make some money off it. And they still sell the
teddy bears in the gift shop.
I adore the park assistant! He's like a side character from Last of the Summer Wine. I expect he would be a ton of fun to talk to about town gossip.
How much one of them bears cost?
This reads like one of those AI titles he's been generating.
The story about the witch reminds me a lot of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Just the names and future telling. I wonder if either of them have been here or these stories are just more common in England