It is more a long cataract than a waterfall, and at 200 yards (180 m) long, reckoned to be the longest waterfall in England.
It is impressive by the scale of the British landscape, and attracts a lot of visitors, despite the 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) walk from the nearest car park (at Cow Green Reservoir). No fee is payable as of 2020[update]. The Pennine Way takes in Cauldron Snout.
The falls are caused by the upper Tees passing over dolerite steps of the Whin Sill.
In art and literature
An engraving of a painting of the cataract by Thomas Allom was published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1835 with a poetical illustration thereon by Letitia Elizabeth Landon,[1]
In W H Auden’s long poem ’Letter to Elizabeth Meyer’ published in 1941 he looks back to the impact this part of England had on him during family holidays in Weardale:
