6/30/2023 0 Comments Lost caves bar nottingham![]() Breaking it out from the working faces caused it to disintegrate into sand, which was carried out of the mine on donkeys through a gently inclined drift. This was a classic pillar-and-stall mine with a random pattern created by selective hand-working to take the cleaner and perhaps the softer sandstone. The largest of these was worked by James Rouse and colleagues for about 20 years around 1800, just to the west of the Mansfield Road in its rise to the Forest. There were also at least three groups of mines, where sand was extracted. Metal works, wagon works, monastic chapels, butchers, cisterns, ornamental follies, wine vaults and grocers' cold stores were among other uses for the caves, along with just a few access tunnels. Also distinctive are the underground tanneries, with tanning pits cut into their rock floors these have all been found in caves along the floodplain cliff, adjacent to the town's zone of 16th century tanneries that were mainly in the open and therefore of restricted use during freezing winters during the Little Ice Age of that period when average temperature were about 1✬ lower than they are today. Each consists of a small complex of caves that included a large germination room where the grain was prepared, the underground kiln where it was roasted, and a well as deep as necessary to reach the local water table. These include the medieval malt-kiln caves that are unique to Nottingham, of which thirty have been discovered to date. Pillar Cave, originally a tannery cave open to daylight at the front and now looking a little different beneath the Broad Marsh Centre.Ĭaves were also used as work places. Almost every inn and public house had its beer cellar carved out of the rock, with steps down from the bar and a vertical barrel-drop down from the backyard many of these are still in use today. The main use for the caves was storage, especially for liquids, where the benefits of year-round constant temperature underground could be realised. Most caves are 2-6 m wide and about 2 m high, but could be as long as required or as dictated by the boundaries of the available land. Caves beneath buildings were generally dry, because the building itself prevented rainfall infiltration. Most were effectively sub-basements under individual buildings, though some were dug out beneath the adjacent gardens or yards. ![]() Practically all the available natural cliff faces had caves cut into them some with multiple generations, but most of the caves were excavated underneath buildings, with stairway entrances and little or no natural light inside them. More than 500 caves are known under the city of Nottingham, but all of these are thought to date from post-1200, while only a small proportion is post-1850. Click on the image for a larger-scale version. Map of Nottingham’s city centre with all the known caves marked. Weathering causes cliff degradation and retreat, which has been matched by the townspeople cutting back the cliff profiles new generations of caves were then excavated behind the position of those that had collapsed or had been removed when they became unstable. Nottingham was documented as a "house of caves" by Asser, King Alfred's chronicler in the 9th century, but little more is known of these early cave houses. This fact must have been appreciated by the early inhabitants of the region, who would have found it easy to create dwelling space by excavating into the foot of the sandstone cliffs along the edge of the Trent floodplain. This fortuitous combination of a weak material and minimal structural breaks makes Nottingham's sandstone an ideal tunnelling medium it is easily excavated and yet stands safely over an unsupported span. And the rock is notably free of significant joints or major bedding planes. The sandstone has a high porosity, from which an initial calcite cement has been leached beneath all outcrops, so that only a weak clay cement remains. Nottingham's Triassic sandstone, locally known as the Nottingham Castle Formation within the Sherwood Sandstone Group, is distinguished by its low intact strength and its high rock mass strength. The Norman town expanded until it occupied most of the sandstone outcrop immediately north of the low cliffs and bluffs that descend to the Trent floodplain, and the town grew little more in size until the mid 1800s. The broadest of these hills was the site of the original Saxon settlement, and the higher but smaller hill just to its west was occupied as the Norman stronghold in the year 1068. ![]() The city of Nottingham stands on an outcrop of Triassic sandstone that forms low hills on the north side of the River Trent. One of the few malt kiln caves that has survived intact. ![]()
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