Beer Quarry, nr Seaton, Devon
The limestone at Beer Quarry has been quarried for centuries and the ‘Beer Quarry Caves’ tourist attraction in the town shows a fantastic side of the seaside town visitors wouldn’t normally get to see. However, directly opposite the attraction lies the abandoned Hanson Beer quarry… and that would be our explore.
I’m not sure how Hanson get away with it?! Several sites I’ve explored have been abandoned workings occupied by them that have been just raped of material and then left without even an attempt at tidying the site or making it secure. But still… makes my hobby easier!
The open-air quarry workings are much like any quarry, and after 23 years of growing up on Portland it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before! It was the underground workings that held my interest, and after having a little look around the remaining outbuildings, which had some nice little features, we headed underground…
As we stood at the entrance, the thawing icicles above the opening were falling off taking stone with them. A little concerning, and the mine itself doesn’t “feel” particularly safe in comparison to other mines I’ve explored but on we marched.
Directly inside the mine sits some original electrical equipment and also some kind of winch platform area with a shaft to the surface. The roof didn’t look terribly safe here so I didn’t hang around to inspect it! After a couple of turns, there is a large open space with brick roof supports. It looked like there’s been a lot of collapses.
The mine is quite small and the whole site is walked within 5-10 minutes, but all-in-all, a nice wander and worth the visit. I think I’ll take the Beer Caves tour in the Summer too, they look extremely interesting.
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Apparently on that site there is 30 acres of chambers to explore underground. Do we know if that has totally sealed up?
Are you thinking of the tourist attraction across the road, Beer Quarry Caves?
No, on the abandoned side of the road there is 30 acres of caverns. On the tourist side there is 40 although only a few acres of it are accessible now. I can only assume that if it only took 10 mins to walk around then most of it must of been sealed like the tourist side has!
Must’ve been. It was a long time ago I was there, but I do vaguely remember a lot back-fill. Or it may have even been falls, the place felt somewhat unsteady.
Hi, me and my girlfriend live in Torquay not too far from this location. We are very interested in visiting this site has anyone been there recently? I would love some feedback to see if it’s worth us travelling there thanks
If you’re not too far away then it would be great if you went to investigate and updated us all!
Thank you for replying.
Me and my girlfriend are visiting the site on [** removed **] and will be more than happy update everyone on what we find we are also going to the abandoned Seaton Heights Hotel which isn’t too far from the quarry. Would you like us to share the pictures?
There’s a lot of people who would be interested in the exact date you’ll be there. I’ve removed. As for the Seaton Heights Hotel, is was an empty wreck when I was there last (approximately 6 or 7 years ago) and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was flattened now. However an update would be good on both accounts.
Have you been yet? We went today and it’s pretty bad inside. Thought it was worth the journey though but you’ve to be careful. You can get into only one side of the cave due to the alarms so we had to sneak about.
Hi, I’d love to come down from London to see these sites, is there a possibility that we would be able to go on an organised visit in order to get all access to the site for photography purposes?
Me and my friends went and explored it a couple of months ago, the site is alarmed (as we found out), but if you go through the top you can get through the fence and there is no alarm system. There are a few buildings etc. to see, and the ramparts are certainly worth an explore!
How do I get in through the top fence? Where is it?
Me and a couple friends went there today, they have CCTV but no on-site personnel, there is barbed wire around all the entrance to the main building itself and it’s even more run down than you see in the pictures, we didn’t go inside but got some pics from outside, not worth the journey really.
Just got here from reddit
*tips fedora*
Great site, must head there myself!
Where exactly can I find this beautiful and iconic cave?
DID U EVEN READ IT?!?
BEER, NEAR SEATON!!!111!
Shared on /r/abandonedporn subreddit
GG!
Thanks Dan
Looks dank as hell, gonna visit it soon.
Mind if I share it on buzzfeed?
Please don’t reddit is a much better website, *tips fedora*
Visited here a few weeks ago. No alarms that I could see although I wasn’t really looking for them. There’s a SSSI for bats within the mine itself and therefore I didn’t enter due to the risk of criminal prosecution if I disturbed the bats. I did wander around the outside. No CCTV I could see, I have photos if anyone is interested. Would love to explore inside but have no contacts and no safety equipment bar a pocket first aid kit, so would most likely have ruled it out anyways even without the SSSI.
Looks amazing here. I live fairly close by, may check it out myself sometime soon! :)
You should! It’s definitely worth the trip if you’re close