Under studies

Anna Haines and family discover the subterranean secrets of Nottinghamshire

Caves at Nottingham Castle

Housing everything from ice age remains to underground homes, businesses and air shelters, surprisingly few people are aware of Nottinghamshire’s fascinating labyrinth of tunnels and caves.  To delve deeper into this mysterious underworld, my family and I based ourselves at Clumber Park Club Campsite, 25 miles north of Nottingham. An idyllic, all-season base for adventurous types, the site has top-notch inclusive facilities, a convenient, secure bike lock-up, and, most importantly for us, direct access onto the Robin Hood Way. This 107-mile walking route through Nottinghamshire enters the National Trust’s Clumber Park twice, and those who don’t mind covering some distance can follow it as far as Nottingham itself.

Soft rock

It is beneath the streets of Nottingham where our own underground adventure begins. Like much of Nottinghamshire, the city sits upon a ridge of Permo-Triassic sandstone. Easy to dig out, the soft rock has been carved away to create countless caves and passages, used for homes, storerooms, dungeons, businesses and illicit hideouts.

Back in 893 AD, monk and historian Asser described Nottingham as Tig Guocobauc (‘house of caves’ or ‘place of cave dwellings’), and after visiting the city in 1639 the poet John Taylor said “if a man be destitute of a house, he only has to go to Nottingham, with … a shovel … (and) … a chisel …, and with such instruments he may play the mole … and work himself a hole and a burrow for himself and his family”.

Today, more than 800 caves have been identified beneath the streets. At Nottingham’s City of Caves attraction we descend on a thrilling journey in time through the city’s largest publicly accessible section of tunnels. Over 245 million years of cave history are covered, from their sandstone origins on a giant Triassic river delta, through centuries of Saxon, Georgian and Victorian tunnelling, their role as Second World War air raid shelters and, finally, their unfortunate burial beneath the concrete of the now partially demolished Broadmarsh Shopping Centre.

The site boasts Britain’s only surviving subterranean medieval tannery, believed to have first been cut into the cliff face in 1250 AD. To our children’s amusement and everyone else’s disgust, Dave, our lively tour guide, describes the rather revolting tanning process – during which oak bark (of which there was a plentiful supply in nearby Sherwood Forest) combined with excrement was used to process animal hides into leather.

Our children were particularly fascinated to learn about some of the unusual jobs that Victorian youngsters carried out in and around the caves, from sifting through waste pots for valuable items (a coveted role!) to cleaning underground wells and kicking stones through gaps in the streets above to alert the Luddites plotting in the cellars to the presence of the authorities.

Getting to grips with Stone Age tools at Creswell Crags

Tunnel visions

Back above ground, we readjust to the daylight and call in at a unique little pub. Built into the cliffside of Castle Rock in 1189, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is England’s oldest surviving inn – apparently, Richard the Lionheart’s crusaders used to meet here. After a welcome break we continue on our own voyage – around the corner – to Nottingham Castle.

The sandstone foundations beneath this fortress were carved out to create some fascinating secret tunnels. While my husband and children are busy firing arrows and playing on the medieval play fort, I sign up for my second cave tour of the day. Descending from the ramparts down the castle’s most extensive tunnel, Mortimer’s Hole, tour guide Jane tells us about the castle’s dark, gruesome and somewhat scandalous history. The account starts with the grizzly death of Edward II and culminates with the capture and also-quite-nasty demise of Sir Roger de Mortimer, usurper to the throne and lover of Edward’s wife, Isabella.

Once a concealed route for transporting goods up to the castle by mule from the now-redirected River Leen below, the tunnel brings us out at Brewhouse Yard, a group of five 17th-century cottages that have had many interesting uses over the years – from plague houses to a 1970s laboratory testing cosmic rays. The cottages now house The Museum of Nottingham Life, where we are given a glimpse of the cave cellars buried deep into Castle Rock.

Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem, Nottingham

Local legend

Nottinghamshire’s sandstone caves have been traced as far as Sherwood Forest, and the next day we set out from the campsite along the Robin Hood Way to hunt for a cavern rumoured to have been a hideout of the local legend.

Robin Hood’s Cave, near Walesby Forest, is tucked away on a bend in the River Maun; it’s easy to imagine how an outlaw band could hide in this small sandstone pocket, beneath what was once the main route of the King’s Highway from Nottingham to York.

The region really is a little bit like Tolkien’s Shire, and as we pootle along the warren of cycleways, I can’t help daydreaming about tunnelling our own sandstone hobbit-hole hideaway.

Great minds clearly think alike. Travelling west out of Clumber on the Robin Hood Way leads to the Welbeck Estate, once home of the 5th Duke of Portland. Known as the ‘burrowing duke’, the eccentric aristocrat poured his time and wealth into digging an impressive maze of underground tunnels, hollows, apartments and even a ballroom beneath his land in the late 19th century. Exploring the estate’s waymarked trails, visitors can glimpse the grand entrance to his tunnels between the two wings at South Tunnel Lodge.

We pass through Welbeck the following day, descending steeply at one point down a fascinating ‘holloway’ lined with tree roots and wall carvings. A common feature in the Nottingham sandstone, these holloways are usually indicative of ancient thoroughfares eroded by animal hoofs, feet and the steeltyres of cartwheels.

Exploring Robin Hood’s Cave

Crags and bones

Today we’re cycling to Creswell Crags, a spectacular gorge riddled with naturally formed caves that cut deeply through magnesian limestone. Regular public tours run here throughout the year, and, donning hard hats, we embark upon the Life in the Ice Age tour. Discoveries of stone and bone tools indicate that the caves sheltered Neanderthals and modern humans following herds of migrating reindeer, horse and bison across Doggerland (an area of land now submerged beneath the North Sea) to spring feeding grounds.

After exploring the cave’s impressive entrance chamber, we scramble through a small tunnel to reach another large chamber deeper within the crag, gasping at how dark it is when we turn out our flashlights.

Passing around examples of Stone Age tools and similar finds for us to inspect, Abbie, our guide, points out that humans would not have been the cave’s sole inhabitants. Indeed, excavated bones of hippos, woolly rhinoceroses and mammoths are presumed to have been left here by cave-dwelling hyenas, lions, wolves and bears. Nervously, we handle a rather large, real-life lion skull, representing the predators that once roamed here.

We return to the visitor centre museum to discover how Creswell’s extensive paleontological, archeological and historical excavations paint a very different image of life 50,000 years ago. The children conduct their own excavations in the interactive discovery area, marvelling at the jaw bones of prehistoric creatures and posing with ‘Spot’ the hyena.

It has been a thrilling adventure through time, but before long it’s time to for us to migrate back to the safety of Clumber’s predator-free, home-from-home Club campsite!

Mortimer’s Hole in Nottingham

Stay at: Clumber Park Club Campsite

Situated within 20,000 acres of parkland, this Nottinghamshire site is ideal for woodland walks, easy cycling routes or if you simply want to relax and enjoy the natural surrounds.

Cavern Club

Three more great locations for underground enthusiasts...

• Yorkshire Dales

The Dales are home to some spectacular show caves, including White Scar Cave at Ingleton − the longest show cave in Britain – and Stump Cross Caverns between Pateley Bridge and Grassington.

Info: yorkshiredales.org.uk

Stay at: Wharfedale Club Campsite

• Knaresborough, North Yorkshire

Mother Shipton’s Cave is the eponymous birthplace of the famous Yorkshire prophetess. The Petrifying Well is a fascinating geological phenomenon here, with cascading water gradually turning to stone the everyday objects hanging from the rock.

Info: mothershipton.co.uk

Stay at: Knaresborough Club Campsite

• Cheddar, Somerset

The showpieces of this system of cliffs and rock formations are the two major show caves famous for their stalactite/stalagmite formations and prehistoric significance, including the discovery of the Cheddar Man skeleton.

Info: cheddargorge.co.uk

Stay at: Cheddar Club Campsite