"Nottingham Underground"
September 2004 Meeting Report
Guest Speaker - Keith Barton
The September 2004 meeting of the Keyworth & District Local History Society was held in the Centenary Lounge, Keyworth on Friday, 3rd of September, 2004. About 55 members were present for a Member’s Evening, which was presented by Keith Barton. The subject was Nottingham Underground and Keith was much better placed than most people to speak on this subject having been a member of the team which explored the site now occupied by the Broadmarsh centre prior to it’s construction. Indeed, Keith is an ex-Chairman of the Society of which he was a founder member. Currently he sits on the Society’s committee as the representative of the Parish Council.
In 1967 the City Council announced plans to re-develop the site of the Broadmarsh site then occupied by various shops, dwellings, and a bus station. Amongst the many streets, which would be affected by the redevelopment, was one of Nottingham’s most famous, and much loved streets, namely Drury Hill. Drury Hill was the site of the last remaining mediaeval thoroughfare into the city of Nottingham. By the 1960’s the street was a mixture of 17th & 18th century buildings. The road was very narrow and very steep and was the buildings were virtually all used as shops. The Council’s proposed plans called for the total demolition of this historic site. Keith was amongst a group of interested parties who banded together and tried to save the Drury Hill site.
In the 1930’s explorations had shown caves that dated back to the middle ages and possibly even earlier. Knowing that the proposed development, (know as the Arndale Centre), would be built over some of these caves Keith and some of his colleagues decided on a course of clandestine investigation to discover the extent of the cave network. Behind the Broadmarsh bus station there were several fissures in the cliff face, which led into the caves. When the expectant explorers gained entry to the caves the first sight, which met their eyes, were piles of rubbish reaching to the very tops of the caves. A path was cleared through the rubbish until a cave was reached that wasn’t full of rubbish. This took the group into 1968 and at that stage it was felt that a professional surveyor was required in order that the caves might be tied into the Ordinance Survey.
The next stage was to try and dissuade the Council from demolishing the site. This was a tough proposition. By mid 1968 many of the affected properties had already been vacated. And others had notices to quit served on them. Keith’s group put their argument for preservation to the City Council in the form of a presentation. The group argued that the caves were unique in the country and the Drury Hill site was of great historic importance and interest. Unfortunately the principal criteria that the Council were driven by was financial, namely, how much money would the caves generate if they were converted to a tourist attraction, couples with the revenue from the Drury Hill premises. Keith’s group could not answer this question but it was safe to assume that the figures would bear no resemblance to those that the Arndale Centre would generate. That being so the Council continued with their plans for the redevelopment of the site. The die was cast for Nottingham to lose one of its most historic thoroughfares and, possibly, many ancient caves.
The caves under Nottingham are only possible because of Nottingham’s geological situation. As virtually every Nottingham resident knows the city stands on a huge outcrop of Bunter sandstone, (but which is now known as Nottingham Castle Sandstone as those members who were present at the April 2004 presentation by Dr Andy Howard on Local Geology & It’s Local Development will remember). The sandstone is formed of wind-blown sand that is bound together by minute deposits of iron. The sandstone is very soft and easily excavated. In Saxon times, (between the 7th & 11th centuries) the site of Drury Hill was a dry streambed and formed part of the town of Nottingham’s defences.
Keith’s group next went to London to give another presentation which the City Council were present at along with the site developers. Keith’s group informed the gathered parties of the extent to which the caves affected the proposed development. Astonishingly, the City Council had not informed the developers of the extent to which they affected the development! The developers were aghast at the size of the problem that the caves would present. The amount of concrete that would be needed to fill in the caves to make the ground safe for the Arndale Centre’s foundation would be colossal. When this fly in the ointment surfaced the developers decided not to proceed with their plans. The upshot of the presentation was that a Public Enquiry into the redevelopment of the site was ordered. This took place in 1971 and its findings were that the caves must be saved but Drury Hill could be demolished. According to the City Council there are now over 460 caves, which have been identified under Nottingham, and without the efforts of Keith’s group their existence of many may well still be unknown.
The uses to which the caves have historically been put are many and varied. Wells, tanneries, breweries, waste pits, cellars, leper colonies and even homes have been hewn from the sandstone. Evidence of many of these activities came to light when Keith’s group excavated many of the caves. How dangerous that excavation was brought fame to the group when one of their members did some work in the caves alone. A roof beam in one of the caves collapsed on the person concerned and pinned him to the floor beneath. If it had not been for the fact that the floor was formed of soft sand he would have been crushed to death. His cries for help were eventually heard after several hours and the fire brigade managed to extricate him without serious injury. Needless to say, solo expeditions were banned henceforth!
When all the buildings above the caves had been demolished Keith’s group had a much clearer picture of the nature and extent of the cave network. One interesting discovery was a well shaft 64 feet deep at the rear or what had been Sevens restaurant! A great many wells of 6 or 7 feet were unearthed and cleared. Water found in the wells was very sweet, thanks mainly to the excellent filtering properties of the sandstone. The 64 ft deep well however was a different proposition. By the time that 20 feet of debris had been cleared a layer of animal bones 3 feet thick was reached. These bones proved to be exclusively of sheep’s feet! What they had been used for was a mystery. Lower still a collection of pottery dating from Henry VIII was found.
The construction of the caves themselves became a very skilled profession. There were families in Nottingham whose sole business was cave excavation and they achieved fame locally for that skill. However, there were considerable risks in the business, not least of which was the lethal nature of the dust that the excavations created. The life expectancy of cave excavators was very short, even allowing for the low life expectancy of the times. Many of the excavators died in their late twenties and early thirties, evidence of this can be found on the headstones of their graves in St Mary’s churchyard. One peculiarity of the cave cutters is that many of them were left-handed, why this should be no one knows. During their explorations Keith’s group found a great many artefacts in the debris that had accumulated over the last five or six hundred years. These range in diversity from fragments of pottery to rusted spurs, clay pipes to animal bones, and human waste to ridge tiles. A selection of some of the artefacts was shown at the end of the presentation, with some suitably tall stories to explain the reason for their discovery. When the talk was completed Keith gave a slide-show presentation from scenes taken when the site was being redeveloped.