Sandstone
Caves in Nottingham
This article first
published in Newsletter Vol.55 No.3 (September 2018) is re-printed with the photographs which should have
accompanied the original article.
On a recent visit to
Nottingham we went to look at the famous sandstone caves. These are all manmade
caves cut into the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone beds which are up to 90 metres
thick and are composed of fine grained
sandstones deposited under desert conditions. They are easily worked by hand
tools but will safely stand as unsupported arches and tunnels. Although the
sandstone is weak it has very few fractures or bedding planes so it is ideal
for carving out caves. In fact Nottingham has more manmade caves than anywhere
else in the British Isles. There are over 800 caves in and under the city. Some
date back to medieval times and even earlier. Several of the complexes are open
to the public as tours. Some others are accessible via buildings open to the
public, while others are on private property.
Some of the caves date back to Norman times or maybe earlier as
Norman pottery has been found in the caves at Castle Gate. Many of the older
caves have been destroyed or reworked but it is thought that that there were
over 100 caves prior to 1600. The present caves date back to the period 1600-1900.
Due to shortage of space in the city in medieval times people lived in caves
cut horizontally out of the rock in the sides of cliffs. The best example today
is the rock houses at Sneinton
Hermitage, east of the old town, much of
which has been quarried away by the railways. See the link below to YouTube
videos in the caves.
Public house cellars: Constant
temperature in the caves of around 12 deg.C make them ideal places to store
beer. A large number of inns have cellars
or extra rooms cut into including Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem, Salutation
Inn, Royal Children and Old Angel Inn. They typically have a cut raised
platform on which to stand the barrels and usually consist of two or three
rooms. Most of them were dug out since 1600 but older ones are difficult to
date. Again some were used for illegal purposes including gambling and cock
fighting.
Wells & Cisterns: Many
caves had a well or cistern build in the floor for access to the water table
which was often not far below the bottom of the caves, especially at the
southern end of the city where the caves were near to the River Trent flood
plain. Several completely flooded caves exist under Castle Boulevard and have
been access by divers into extensive system of chambers not fully explored. The
fact that the water table has risen about a metre since medieval times is
illustrated by the fact that some of the caves under Drury Hill have floors now
covered with shallow water.
Industrial use: Several of
the caves were used for industrial purposes including a tannery (see our visit
below) and for storage purposes. There are a number of caves under the castle
area but it is a myth that a long one exists as an escape route from the now
demolished medieval castle. Outside of the
main city several caves were dug as mines as the sandstone is so
friable it is easily ground up as loose
sand. On the west side of Mansfield Road
is a large sand mine which was worked using donkeys from 1785 onwards. It was
used as a tourist attraction in the 19th Century and an air raid
shelter in WW2. There is now an entrance from Peel Street open to the public. Outside
the city are a number of other caves, notably at Welbeck Abbey and the village
of Arnold.
Modern build construction
in the 20th and 21st Centuries is not without its
problems in Nottingham as so many of the caves are undocumented. Many small
caves have been discovered during construction work and once documented have
been filled with concrete. Some have had brick pillars built in them to
strengthen the roof and others have had concrete roofs built over the top. When
the Broadmarsh shopping centre was build a number of interesting caves were
uncovered and incorporated into the shopping centre as a visitor attraction. We decided to visit the “City of Caves Tour” which is underneath the Broadmarsh shopping
centre (follow signs to this to get to
it). Tours around the caves are available seven days a week except for a few
dates around Christmas time but there is no wheelchair access to the site as
there are 30 steps leading down into the caves There is of course the
inevitable gift shop and display centre!
The tour took us through
a cross section of social history of the caves of Nottingham. As part of our visit
we saw the only medieval underground tannery in the country, a section used as
an air raid shelter where thousands of people sought refuge during WW2 and the
remnants of Drury Hill Victorian slums and several wells for water supply. The
cave network has Ancient Monument Protection and a number of other chambers and
tunnels.
The area was originally
known as Tiggua Cobaucc, meaning ‘Place of Caves’, and the first reference to Tiggua
Cobaucc was in The Life Of King Alfred, by Welsh monk and historian, Asser, the
Bishop of Sherborne, who visited Nottingham around 900 AD. These ancient caves
were likely used for housing as early as the 11th century, and troglodytes were
certainly recorded in the 17th century. Many were inhabited until 1845, when
the St. Mary’s Enclosure Act banned the rental of cellars and caves as homes
for the poor, though the practice doubtless continued illegally. One of the
cave chambers has a hole in the roof probably for dropping messages down from
the properties above to alert people engaged in illegal activities such as cock
fighting and gambling.
We then went over towards
the castle and dropped into the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem pub for a pint, it seemed a shame not to. It is
supposed to be the oldest pub in the country but that is disputed. This also
has several cave rooms at the back of the pub, along with cellars cut out of
the sandstone underneath (see photo). We
did not have time to visit the other locations open to the public but they also
seem worth a visit. Several sites are not even commercial endeavours but can be
visited free just by seeking out their location in advance. There are enough
locations to keep you busy for a couple of days, bearing in mind that most of
the old pubs in Nottingham have rooms or cellars cut into the sandstone below.
See references below.
General Admission Prices for the
City of Caves Tour are:-
Adults: £7.95; Under 18s: £6.95 (Under 5s go free); Students: £6.95; Over 60s: £6.95. The main underground sites open to
the public are listed below. Some have regular visiting times but others are
only open on special occasions.
Check websites for details.
City
of Caves Nottingham Tour: Brewhouse Yard & Mortimer's Hole, both in the
Castle area: Ye Olde Trip to
Jerusalem: Peel St Caves: The Malt Cross: and Park Estate Caves.
References:
Sandstone Caves of
Nottingham:
by:
Tony Waltham. Forth Edition 2018 and now in the Red Rose Library, an excellent
read.
City of Caves
website:
http://www.nationaljusticemuseum.org.uk/venue/city-of-caves/
Nottingham Castle Caves:
https://www.visit-nottinghamshire.co.uk/whats-on/nottingham-castle-cave-tours-p611691
Nottingham Castle Caves:
https://www.visit-nottinghamshire.co.uk/whats-on/nottingham-castle-cave-tours-p611691
Caves around Nottingham: https://www.visit-nottinghamshire.co.uk/ideas-and-inspiration/caves/all-cave-attractions Top
underground sites in Nottingham area:
https://www.visit-nottinghamshire.co.uk/blog/read/2018/05/going-underground-explore- nottinghams-top-ten-caves-b5494 YouTube
videos taken in the caves:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nottingham+caves
Andy Hall
A Tannery - Photo: Andy Hall
Air Raid Shelter - Photo: Andy Hall
Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem - Photo: Andy Hall
Caves under Drury Hill - Photo: Andy Hall
Pub Cellar - Photo: Andy Hall
Beneath Broad March Centre - Photo: Andy Hall