Royston Cave - Speculations

Speculations

Royston Cave has been the source of many speculations, although it is hard to determine much about its origin and function.

• Knights Templar: It has been recently speculated that the cave may have been used by the Knights Templar before their dissolution by Pope Clement V in 1312. Although claims have been made that this religious-military institution of the Catholic Church held a weekly market at Royston between 1199 and 1254, the market charter was in fact granted to the Augustinian Canons of the town. It has been speculated that the cave was divided into two floors by a wooden floor, the evidence consisting of a single posthole and what may be beamslots to secure the platform to the walls. Two figures close together near the damaged section may be all that remains of a known Templar symbol, two knights riding the same horse. However, as the image has been repaired in modern times, this cannot be confirmed. In 1953, the architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner, wrote that the date of the carvings "is hard to guess. They have been called Anglo-Saxon, but are more probably of various dates between the C14 and C17 (the work of unskilled men)". This would place the carvings after the time of the Templars; certainly the figures in armour are wearing full plate, which would date them to a century after the Templars' demise.
• Augustinian store house: It has been claimed it was used by Augustinian monks from the local priory, who would have required a cool store for their produce and a chapel for their devotions. The idea that it might have been a meeting place for recusant Catholics during the Reformation of the 16th century has little to recommend it.

• Neolithic flint mine: this has also been put forward as an explanation of the cave.