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City of Caves
City of Caves
Broadmarsh Centre
Nottingham
NG1 7LS
Tel: 0115 9881 955
About the City of Caves
City Of Caves is a unique family attraction in the heart of Nottingham, located in the upper mall of Broadmarsh Shopping Centre, near it and the Fletcher Gate’s car parks, and only five minutes’ walk from the railway station. The City Of Caves is an underground family attraction fashioned from a system of around 400 caves dating back to the Dark Ages. They were in use until as late as 1924, Nottingham boasting more man-made caves than anywhere else in the UK, as well as Ancient Monument Protection status.
Known in ancient times as Tiggua Cobaucc, or ‘The Place of Caves’, the first known literary reference to Tiggua Cobaucc is in Welsh monk and historian, Asser, the Bishop of Sherborne’s The Life Of King Alfred, penned after a visit to Nottingham at the start of the 10th century. The caves were in use as housing shelters around this time, and cave dwellers were reported through to at least the 17th century. Indeed, a number of the caves any were in use in this way until 1845, when the St. Mary’s Enclosure Act outlawed the rental of cellars and caves as homes for paupers, though the practice probably just went underground!
The family attraction that is the City Of Caves was made feasible thanks to the soft Sherwood Sandstone underneath Nottingham, which could be hand-carved relatively easily, allowing cellars to be excavated and used as store rooms, factories, pub basements, dwellings and even air raid shelters. Most of the caves are held in private ownership, and some were lost over the centuries by a series of urban developments. However, the City Of Caves is now a protected family attraction, having attained £50,000 for works in April 2003, and reopening soon afterwards as a state of the art family day out. Just the ticket for armchair pot-holers!
The City Of Caves affords ticket holders an unforgettable and novel family day out, delving into another, subterranean world. The family attraction is laid out with dedicated sections concentrating on themes from the City Of Caves’ past. The journey back in time at the family attraction begins with a dripping descent into the black Brythonic and Anglo-Saxon tunnels, before arrival at the age-old Enchanted Well, where a flowing spring provides vivid images of the ancient Britons and their Druid soothsayer-holy men, reciting incantations to water deities like the Goddess, Faer. Fresh water was of course deemed to be a life-giving, magical commodity, and ticket holders to City Of Caves can drop a coin into the Well and make a wish for their own lives.
The City Of Caves’ Medieval Tannery is housed in the Pillar Cave and derives from the time when Nottingham was a nationally recognised leather producer during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Pillar Cave houses the remains of the UK’s only medieval underground tanning facility, and aromas from the smell box can be experienced by ticket holders with strong stomachs! Indeed, the sights and sounds of the tannery of 1250 are conjured up by a resident tanner, who supervises the tanning process, converting animal pelts into leather. During its peak in 1500-1640, the family attraction manufactured huge quantities of shoes, belts, gloves and harnesses, as well as armour and bottles. Ticket holders can see that tanning was a time-consuming process and that the labour undertaken in the City Of Caves was hard, dirty and unhealthy. The pong produced was so stomach-wrenching that it even kept rats at bay! Fortunately, the aroma of the family attraction is rather less overpowering, meaning that a family day out will be memorable for the right reasons!
The Medieval Tanner - artist, tradesman, craftsman, magician – welcomes new recruits to his work, though those on a family day to City Of Caves may not feel obliged to sign on for 12 hour days without holiday and only 10 shillings remuneration a year.
Equally thought-provoking, the City Of Caves’ Slums Of Drury Hill - one of the oldest streets in the city, until demolition in 1968 - is a sobering experience. It has a windowless, airless, dark and damp cellar, amid the ccacophony of the Narrow Marsh slums. The family attraction has original basement walls from the last remaining Drury Hill buildings, which were blessed with some of the 19th century’s worst slums. Whole families inhabited a single room with no sanitation, making their homes breeding grounds for disease like cholera, tuberculosis and smallpox.
Still, things could get worse! During World War II, the threat of death from the skies forced people underground again, and ticket holders to the family attraction can experience the sub-surface existence of citizens facing German bombing in Wartime Alert. There’s an Anderson Shelter and an onsite ARP Warden, who recounts fearsome air raids like that of 8th May 1941, when 500 high explosive bombs fell on Nottingham as part of the blitz. Thousands sought refuge in 86 caves used as public shelters, though over 200 died. The sandstone caves were used to supply sand for sandbags too, and a panoply of wartime memorabilia is on show.
The City Of Caves was almost lost when the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre was put up in the late 60s. Fortunately, the future family attraction got a new lease of life in the new millennium, maintaining such intriguing features as Sam Hancock’s Cave, a former pub cellar with a constant cool temperature ideal for brewing and storing ale. A family day out –at City Of Caves also takes in the views of an on-site archaeologist interpreter, and archaeologists are in fact making ongoing investigations into the labyrinth of tunnels to see where they go and to uncover fresh chambers within the family attraction.
After viewing the City Of Caves, ticket holders can visit the shop to purchase rocks, fossils and Celestite crystals, crystal balls and books.
School parties can opt for an audio tour and guided visit with information packs, while groups can book the City Of Caves in the evening.