Chislehurst Caves

The Chislehurst Caves are a series of intersecting man-made tunnels and caverns covering some 22 miles (35.4 km) in Chislehurst in the London Borough of Bromley.

Today the caves are a tourist attraction and, although they are called caves, they are entirely man-made and were dug and used as chalk and flint mines. The earliest recorded mention of the mines and lime-burning kilns above dates from a 9th-century Saxon charter and then not again until around 1232AD; they are believed to have been last worked in the 1840s. From the mid-13th to early 19th centuries the "caves" were created and expanded from the mining of raw chalk, flint and lime-burning chalk.

During World War I the caves were used as an ammunition storage dump associated with the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. In the 1930s the tunnels were used for mushroom cultivation.

When the aerial bombardment of London began in September 1940, the caves were used as an air-raid shelter. Soon they became an underground city accommodating up to 15,000 inhabitants (who each paid a penny to enter). The tunnels were fitted with electric lighting, toilets and washing facilities; a chapel was built and also a hospital.

The caves are located close to Chislehurst railway station and many people arrived there to then enter the shelter. Shortly after VE Day the shelter was officially closed. There was one child born in the caves, christened in the cave chapel with the name of Cavena Wakeman, who had the name until she turned 18, when she legally changed her first name to Rose and using Cavena as her middle name.

In 1903, William Nichols, then Vice President of the British Archaeological Association, produced a theory that the mines were made by the Druids, Romans and Saxons. This theory was used to give names to the three parts of the caves: tour guides point out supposed Druid altars and Roman features. However, this is based on Dr Nichols' writings and has not been verified.

The earliest documented evidence for a chalk cave is in 1737. (However, the earliest recorded mention of the mines and lime-burning kilns above, dates from a 9th-century Saxon charter and then not again until around 1232, this being that most likely because there was no taxation on them prior to 1232.) An opposing article in the next issue showed the similarity of the workings to coal mines in the Newcastle area, and argued that most of the excavation had been made in the last two centuries and that the evidence for any dene-holes was slight. However, a dene-hole does exist in what is known as the middle section.

The caves were used between 1830 and the 1860s for producing lime. The 25-inch to a mile (approx 1:2,500) Ordnance Survey map of 1862–63 describes the place as a "chalk pit" and marks an "engine house" and two remaining kilns. A further investigation produced, among other evidence, a letter from the son of one of the workers.