1000 years ago Nottingham was known as Tigguocobauc: the house of caves. It’s likely the first caves were carved beneath the cliff of sandstone on which the city was founded but as the town grew, so did the number of caves beneath it.
What were Nottingham’s caves used for?
Butcheries, beer cellars and ice houses were common but the Nottingham Caves Survey has also mapped medieval dungeons, chapels, tanneries, kilns for malt and pottery, ‘gentlemen’s caves’ and secret (and not-so-secret) tunnels to Nottingham castle.
The Victorians also used the caves as stables, for cold and fireproof storage, or as tourist attractions, follies, and summerhouses. In the 20th-century there were catacombs, garages, and air-raid shelters. There is even an underground skittle alley, with a slot carved in one wall for your ball to return through.
How many of the caves have been preserved?
This is the first time all 549 of the caves known to exist have been fully surveyed. The most famous of the caves are beneath the Broadmarsh shopping centre in the city centre. The work of a small number of individuals and societies in the 1960s prevented the complete destruction of this vast network of caves. Today these are one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions. It’s impossible to know how many other caves across the city have been blocked, filled or destroyed due to development.
What does this new research tell us about the caves?
As well as providing invaluable information on the state of the caves the results will help find the best way to conserve and re-use the caves, identifying sites that have the greatest potential to be used as tourist attractions, filming locations, art spaces, coffee shops etc.
The survey team is also creating a smartphone app which will allow you to see the caves hidden beneath the ground as you move around on the surface.
With all these holes, why doesn’t Nottingham fall in on itself?
Nottingham’s sandstone sub terrain was laid down by flash floods during the Triassic period, and then, critically, stayed unaltered for 250 million years. Unlike many sandstones it shows little sign of fracture or movement. Sandstone is too crumbly to be a likely site for natural cave systems, but this weakness makes it easy to carve, and in Nottingham deep, horizontal bedding planes make the artificial caves reasonably stable.
Can the public get involved?
It’s impossible to know if we have mapped all the caves. In a quest to find more, a team of volunteers is currently exploring the city, knocking on doors and following up leads. Have you heard stories of a site not yet discovered?
The Nottingham Caves Survey has been funded by a number of organisations, including the Greater Nottingham Partnership, Nottingham City Council, Experience Nottinghamshire and the British Geological Survey, and Historic England has been a major and constant partner throughout. The project has a wide remit: to investigate, record, visualise, promote and preserve Nottingham’s caves. It is run by Trent & Peak Archaeology, now part of the York Archaeological Trust.
Reblogged this on archaeotutor.
Very interesting piece, I really like the idea of a mobile app showing you the caves beneath your feet.
Je suis très impressionnée par les Caves de Nottingham. Je ne les connaissais pas.
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I worked on a dig that uncovered a previously unknown cave in Nottingham in 1984 close to Broadmarsh. It was fascinating stuff! at the beginning of my career as an archaeologist.
what about ones at salutation inn
Hi Roy – here’s a link to the flyround video on the Salutation Inn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aSOeivaukQ
v interesting
what about the ones below the castle ?on the opposite side , which were apparently lived in until the 1950s,,facade s have windows and doorways, rather like Petra.. perfectly dry inside. council declared them unfit, and rehoused the families..very picturesque.. rather overgrown when i discovered some 20 years ago…perhaps local historians know more of this..
Hi Ralph, great to hear you found it interesting. The caves around the castle are one of the key areas the council are looking at in their new Heritage Strategy for the city – http://www.mynottinghamnews.com/making-the-past-work-harder-for-nottinghams-future/.
Fascinating. I never knew
Some years ago I was carrying out some work to the building that I believe is now Jamie’s Italian restaurant. We came across a boarded up sort of entrance so we r removed the covering and discovered an entrance which lead deep underground we went down as far as we dared to and discovered that is was a network of small caves. It felt very creepy down there so we resurfaced and boarded it all up again. Do you know about these caves? They are right next to the main attraction caves. Please be in touch and let me know if these are a new find as I’m very interested.
Martin radford
I am traveler from the middle-east and like to explore the culture of the middle-east, their ancient artifacts and heritage buildings etc. In Oman, when i visited in 2012, the development there was in full swing http://bit.ly/1GGZehw that time they found a creepy road to the caves underground which are now known as one of the heritage of the country.
I P0LAYED IN LOTS OF THEM IN 1945 ONWARDS AS A CHILD AS THEY WERE NEVER LOCKED UP IN FACT NO DOORS . USED AS AIR RAID SHELTERS TOO .
have the caves that lead off from the railway tunnel (that comes out near Broadmarsh) been mapped. We explored them in the 80’s but they were too complex for us to be sure of getting back the way we came.