Its entrance is a 50-metre (160 ft) deep fenced shaft, and it rapidly descends a series of pitches to a low aqueous passage that has been connected to Lost Johns' Cave.

Upstream gets too low after some 60 metres, but downstream has been forced round some awkward bends and through some ducks into Rumbling Hole Inlet in Lost Johns' Cave.

[3] Rumbling Beck Cave is the source of the water that enters the entrance shaft 8 metres (26 ft) below the surface at the east end.

He thought it an impressive place: "There lay an abysmal gulf most certainly ; but its head was festooned with long and trailing, or rather pendant locks of ivy.

The verge was adorned with holly, hawthorn, and bilberry, whilst rocks and ledges were carpetted with moss, polypody, blechnum, and oxalis, as well as other plants"[7]The first descent of the entrance shaft was by Yorkshire Ramblers' Club in 1899, but they reported that the outlet finished in a pool.