Poole's Cavern is a 2 million year old, natural limestone cave situated in the beautiful woodland of Buxton Country Park in Derbyshire and has been visited for 5,000 years since Neolithic tribes first used it's chambers as shelter. The cave has been known as 'The First Wonder of the Peak' since the 1600s and recently celebrated its 150th anniversary as an official showcave and tourist attractionModern visitors enter the cavern in comfort through easilly accessible, illuminated chambers, with guided tours leaving every 20 minutes from the visitor centre.

The Peak District Limestone was formed during the Carboniferous geological period. At this time, some 340 million years ago, Britain was part of a large continental landmass close to the equator.In these tropical conditions rivers flowed into shallow warm seas teeming with primitive fish, molluscs, and coral reefs. Their Calcium shells combined with silt to form layer upon layer of Calcium Carbonate rich sediments several hundred metres thick. The fossil remains of these ancient plants and animals are easily recognisable in Limestone.These Limestone layers were lifted, fractured, and folded by massive earth movements as the continental plates drifted apart. Ancient rivers deposited sands and silt layers over the Limestone forming the Millstone Grit sandstones of the Northern Peak District.

Early excavations did not employ the discipline of modern digs, and nothing but the larger finds were recorded. Only in 1890 did science take a firm grip, and it was in this year that the chief archaeologist, Professor Boyd Dawkins, coined the name 'Roman Chamber', the bulk of the unearthed items dating from that period.Most of the Cavern's archaeological treasures were found here during an extensive dig in the 1980s. Chiefly Samian ware from the Roman era, there were also some Iron Age remains, including human bones, along with items from the Bronze Age and Neolithic periods. The markers from the dig have been left in situ, and a cross section of the finds can be viewed in the Visitor Centre.