Early Exploration of Kent's Cavern

Abstract

THE REVEREND JOHN MACENERY, foremost of the early explorers of Kent's Cavern, was born at Limerick in 1797 and was chaplain to the Cary family at Tor Abbey, Torquay, where he died on February 18, 1841. His stone monument is in the cemetery of the Parish Church of Torre, and it states “he inspired respect as a scholar by the vigor of his understanding, his polished taste and varied learning”. He made his first visit to Kent's Cavern in the summer of 1825 by chancing to hear a friend express his intention of joining an exploring party there which eventually numbered about a dozen; he made the last of the train, the others spread themselves about but added nothing to what was already known of the cavern, and he betook himself alone to a spot which seemed to have been disturbed. He tumbled it over and found the first fossil teeth he had ever seen; he pursued his search in silence and kept his good fortune to himself, as he “was anxious to send them in the state they were found to Oxford”, probably to Prof. Buckland who later in the year visited Kent's Cavern with MacEnery. On that occasion the latter found the tooth of a rhinoceros and a flint blade which he believed was the first ever found in the Cavern.