Underneath the
busy streets of Nottingham lies a warren of caves. Now, a unique project has
brought long-forgotten caves into the public eye. Delia Monk reports...
STATUES,
medieval symbols and even underground heating systems are just some of the
things that have been seen in Nottingham's caves this year.
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Expert:
Dr David Strange-Walker of Trent and Peak Archaeology by some of the caves at
Rock Cemetery, in Mansfield Road, just one of many city caves where he and his
team have used cutting-edge technology to create a 3D survey.
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Wonders:
A full-size sandstone statue of a goddess figure in Thomas Herbert's Columns
Cave. Far left: Medieval carved crosses in the malting cave beneath Broadway,
in the Lace Market.
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Sand
caves: A laser- scanned silhouette image of the caves in the Rock Cemetery, in
Mansfield Road. The cemetery was an underground sand mine in the 19th century.
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The Nottingham
Caves Survey, which started in February 2010, has now recorded and documented
more than 70 caves in the city.
Many are
private, belonging to the owners of the properties that sit above them, and
have not been entered by anyone else for decades.
These are just
some of the pictures of the discoveries to date, ahead of the project finishing
in February. By then, Trent and Peak Archaeology, which is running the project
and is part of York Archaeological Trust, will have entered and surveyed about
90 of Nottingham's 500-strong caves.
It has also
released YouTube videos that have attracted more than 165,000 hits from 27
countries.
But project
manager Dr David Strange-Walker hopes that the team may be able to extend their
English Heritage funding for one year in a bid to enter as many of the caves as
possible.
If successful,
they would widen it into a community project and train local volunteers to try
and record as much as they can.
The team of
volunteers would approach cave owners and, if allowed in, take photos and draw
a brief sketch.
The caves are
being surveyed with a 3D laser scanner, producing a full measured record of
them in three dimensions.
"We've been
quite successful in bringing Nottingham's caves to a worldwide audience,"
said Dr Strange-Walker.
"Nottingham
caves are pretty unique in Britain. There's nowhere else in Britain that has
anything like this number or range of caves from medieval right up to the 20th
century.
"The
project has really started to put Nottingham back on the map for having caves
again."
He has recorded
a variety of caves over the course of the project.
Some of the
finest are deemed to be those that belonged to Alderman Thomas Herbert, who cut
a series of caves under his property in Park Terrace, in the Park.
These include
Columns Cave, pictured on this page, which features numerous columns and
statues of what appear to be Gods and Goddesses.
Dr
Strange-Walker said it was also fascinating to visit his herbarium cave, which
has a stove in it with a chimney poking out of the ground. The hot smoke would
also run around the edge of the cave in concealed channels, providing extra
warmth.
Dr
Strange-Walker said he believed it had been used as a dark greenhouse for
growing plants of some kind, or for entertaining friends in a warmer
environment.
Through this
study, the team discovered another previously-unknown cave under Mr Herbert's
house. This was filled with rubble and rubbish and was split into two rooms,
each about four by ten metres. Dr Strange-Walker said they appeared to have
been used as wine cellars as they are lined with shelves and partitions.
The team are
also hoping to enter another one of Mr Herbert's caves called Daniel in the
Lion's Den, which has sandstone carvings depicting the biblical tale of Daniel.
By contrast to
these Victorian-cut caves, the Rock Cemetery, in Mansfield Road, features an
18th-century underground sand mine.
Dr
Strange-Walker said underground burial tunnels were built after the First World
War but the catacombs were never brought into fruition and still lie empty
today.
Meanwhile in the
Lace Market, a medieval malting cave lies beneath the Propaganda nightclub in
Broadway.
