Chislehurst Caves a 22 miles (35 km) long series of tunnels in Chislehurst, in the south eastern suburbs of London. Today they 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 mention of the mines is circa 1250 and they are last believed to have been worked in the 1830s. During the early 1900s they became a popular tourist attraction, but in the First World War, they were used as an ammunition depot associated with the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich then they were used for mushroom cultivation in the 1930s.
During the Second World War, in September 1940, the aerial bombardment of London began, and the caves were used as an air raid shelter. Within a short time, it became an underground city of some 15,000 inhabitants with electric lighting, a chapel and a hospital. Shortly after VE Day the shelter was officially closed. Only one baby, christened Rose Cavena Wakeman, was born in the caves.
Read more about Chislehurst Caves: Mythology, Other Uses
Famous quotes containing the word caves:
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
—Thomas Gray (1716–1771)