Biting into a piece of our history

ALTHOUGH Basil Fawlty made Torquay famous, he wasn’t the South Devon seaside resort’s most important resident. That distinction goes to someone who lived a very long time ago.

Kents Cavern, 2km from Torquay harbour, is part of a limestone cave system created two million years ago by underground rivers. Over the last 100,000 years wild mammals, including hyenas and sabre-toothed cats, occupied the cavern.

Graffiti on the cavern walls date from 1571 and 1688. In 1829 John MacEnery, a Catholic priest, carried out the first systematic excavation of the site. He found ancient flint tools. They were so old that stalagmites had grown over them. This evidence of ancient human presence was dismissed by the scientific community, however, because it contradicted Irish Archbishop James Ussher’s claim that God had created the world in 4004BC. Ussher had arrived at this date by adding together the ages of people in the Bible. The Genesis creation myth was regarded as fact until the late 19th Century.