City of Caves is a

visitor attraction A tourist attraction is a place of interest that tourists visit, typically for its inherent or an exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement. Types Places of natural b ...

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

based on a network of caves, carved out of sandstone that have been variously used over the years as a tannery, public house cellars, and as an air raid shelter. The caves are listed as a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

under the name ''Caves at Drury Hill'', Drury Hill being the medieval street under which they were formerly located until it was demolished to make way for the

Broadmarsh Shopping Centre Broadmarsh is a historic area of Nottingham, England. The area was subjected to large scale slum clearance, creating large spaces used for regeneration. A shopping centre, car park, bus station and road complex created in the early 1970s cut-t ...

. The newer ''City of Caves'' name refers to the fact that the city of Nottingham has hundreds of man-made caves, which have been in use for over a thousand years. The City of Caves was accessed from the upper level of the

but can currently be accessed from Garner's Hill due to construction works in the Broadmarsh Centre, scheduled to finish in 2021. The attraction, part of the National Justice Museum, has been run by the Egalitarian Trust since opening 2004.

History

Nottingham sits upon a soft

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

ridge which can easily be dug with simple hand tools to create artificial cave dwellings. Indeed, Nottingham was described as ''Tig Guocobauc'' in Old Brythonic meaning ''Place of Caves'' by the

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

Bishop of Sherborne The Bishop of Sherborne is an episcopal title which takes its name from the market town of Sherborne in Dorset, England. The see of Sherborne was established in around 705 by St Aldhelm, the Abbot of Malmesbury. This see was the mother diocese o ...

Asser Asser (; ; died 909) was a Welsh monk from St David's, Dyfed, who became Bishop of Sherborne in the 890s. About 885 he was asked by Alfred the Great to leave St David's and join the circle of learned men whom Alfred was recruiting for his c ...

in his ''The Life of King Alfred'' (893). The caves here are some of the oldest remaining in the city, with pottery finds dating some of them to 1270–1300, and were inhabited from at least the 17th century until 1845 when the '' St. Mary's

Inclosure Act The Inclosure Acts, which use an archaic spelling of the word now usually spelt "enclosure", cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1 ...

'' banned the renting of cellars and caves as homes for the poor. None of the caves are natural; they were all cut into the sandstone for use as houses, cellars and places of work by the inhabitants of the city. more than 800 caves in the city have been catalogued by Nottingham's City Archaeologist, Scott Lomax, including approximately 200 that were only rediscovered, through research by the City Archaeologist, since 2016. Construction of the

Broadmarsh Broadmarsh is a historic area of Nottingham, England. The area was subjected to large scale slum clearance, creating large spaces used for regeneration. A shopping centre, car park, bus station and road complex created in the early 1970s cut-t ...

Shopping Centre began in the late 1960s, but the opening up of the caves to vandals and plans to fill them in with concrete caused a public outcry. A detailed study by Nottingham City Council, assisted by The Nottingham Historical Arts Society, led to the caves being scheduled as an ancient monument and the development plans were subsequently changed to preserve most of the caves. The caves were cleared by volunteers from the 2418 Sherwood Squadron Air Training Corps and Rushcliffe School and opened to public tours by the Friends of Nottingham Museum in 1978.

Caves in Nottingham from medieval to now

Medieval tannery

Two caves cut into the cliff face and opening out to daylight housed the only known underground

tannery Tanning may refer to: *Tanning (leather), treating animal skins to produce leather *Sun tanning, using the sun to darken pale skin **Indoor tanning, the use of artificial light in place of the sun **Sunless tanning, application of a stain or dye t ...

in Britain. The Pillar Cave was originally cut around 1250 but had been filled in by a rockfall by 1400. It was cleared and reopened as part of the tannery in 1500, with circular pits cut to hold barrels. A second cave was also cut with rectangular clay-lined vats. The small size of the vats in these caves indicates that they were probably used for sheep or goats skins rather than cowhide. There was an opening to the River Leen where they would wash the skins in the town's drinking water.

Drury Hill slums

The basement walls here are all that remains of the buildings of Drury Hill, once a wealthy neighborhood in the medieval city that by the 19th century had degenerated into one of the worst slums in Britain. Poor families slept, ate and lived in the single room basements here with overcrowding and poor sanitation making it a breeding ground for

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

and

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

Air-raid shelter

Some of the caves here were joined and expanded to house one of 86 public

air raid shelter Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack (but many ...

s that were found in the sandstone beneath the city by February 1941 to protect its inhabitants during the bombing attacks of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, including a particularly severe one on 8 May 1941 that is recreated as part of the tour. Holes were also dug here to supply the sand used in the sandbags that helped to protect the city.

References

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Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

Tourist attractions in Nottingham Buildings and structures in Nottingham Caves of England Caves used for hiding