The Grotte de Senance is also known as "Jehan Gustin's room", because the last lord of Noidant-le-Rocheux is said to have lived there for several months in 1572. His castle stood at the northern tip of the plateau where the cave is located. At that time, there was a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Jehan Gustin, an ardent Catholic, was forced to evacuate his stronghold and spent several months hiding in the grotto until the Protestants were defeated and the region was pacified.
The entrance to the Grotto is in the shape of a triangle, with the point at the top. The base is 2 metres wide and 2 metres high.
For enlightened amateurs and speleologists :
Inside, the Grotto comprises 4 distinct sections.
The first, the entrance gallery, begins with a large chamber 5 metres long, 1.30 metres wide and 2 metres high on average, followed by a corridor 2 metres long, 80 cm wide and 1.70 metres high, reached by a staircase. Once you reach the second chamber, which measures 3.30 m by 2 m, you can stand upright at first, because after that the passageway is reduced to a height of 70 cm, which you can only cross by crawling. The third chamber is roughly round, 2 m in diameter and around 1.60 m high.
The second gallery can only be reached by a vertical descent, followed by a fairly rapid descent over rocky scree to reach the bottom of the gallery. This is an impressive sight, as the ceiling is almost eight metres high. On the floor is a gaping hole 60cm in diameter, the depth of which the electric lamp cannot reveal.
The third gallery offers a certain analogy with the second. It faces it and runs in the same direction, but the floor is lower and the ceiling, which narrows, is almost twenty metres high. It is reached by a dangerous descent, with a sheer drop of around four metres. Once you have gained a foothold at the entrance, you descend a further four metres or so on a gentle slope formed by a rockfall. This gallery is remarkable for its size; its vault is almost inaccessible and you need powerful lights to see it.
The fourth gallery is even more dangerous, with a 6.50 m deep shaft with sheer, fairly smooth walls. At the bottom of the large shaft is a gallery about 20 metres long, very high and quite wide in the middle. The floor of the fourth gallery slopes steeply to the south and, given the depth at this point, it is safe to assume that the gallery extends as far as an underground spring, the waters of which do indeed emerge below the cave.
Grotte de Sénance
