Heathery Burn Cave
 Map showing the location of Heathery Burn Cave in County Durham.
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| Location | near Stanhope, County Durham |
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| Region | North East |
| Coordinates | 54°45′56″N 2°01′15″W / 54.765549°N 2.0207943°W |
| Type | Bronze Age Cave and hoard |
| Site notes | |
| Archaeologists | William Greenwell |
| Public access | Site removed by quarrying |
Heathery Burn Cave is a cave near Stanhope, County Durham, England, in which a large collection of Late Bronze Age weapons and tools was discovered and excavated between 1859 and 1872.
The cave was in a ravine formed by Stanhope Burn, a small tributary of the River Wear. The cave itself was about a mile north of the confluence of the burn and the river, on the left bank. The floor of the cave was 10 feet (3.0 metres) above the level of the burn, and was a tourist destination before the quarrying of the limestone for smelting purposes. The cave has subsequently been destroyed.
The geology of the area forms part of the Yoredale Group of limestone with subordinate sandstone and argillaceous rocks.
The earliest archaeological discoveries in the cave were made in the 1750s or 1760s, though the full extent of the site did not become known until later. Primarily, the material was discovered progressively in the latter half of the 19th century as a result of quarrying on the site. The finds were recorded and catalogued by William Greenwell between 1859 and 1872, who described them as "one of the most valuable discoveries ever made in Britain of weapons, implements, ornaments, and other things belonging to the Bronze Age". The objects from the cave are dispersed across several museums in the United Kingdom; the largest collection is in the British Museum, but material is also stored in the Ashmolean Museum and Yorkshire Museum. Bronze Age implements are few in number from Weardale; the only other examples from near Wolsingham and Eastgate.
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