Beneath the bustling streets of Nottingham lies a secret world—a vast labyrinth of hand-carved sandstone chambers, medieval tunnels, dark cellars, and ancient passageways known collectively as The City of Caves. This remarkable subterranean network is one of the most unusual heritage sites in Britain, offering an atmospheric journey through centuries of urban life. While Nottingham above ground has evolved into a lively, modern city, the ground beneath tells a much older, more mysterious story. The caves are a place where legend meets archaeology, where everyday medieval life meets moments of crisis, and where the ingenuity of Nottingham’s past residents becomes truly visible.
With more than 800 recorded caves, Nottingham has the largest concentration of man-made caves in the UK. For visitors, the City of Caves attraction—located near the contemporary Broadmarsh area—serves as a gateway into this underground world. It is here that you can step back in time, explore chambers shaped by hand, and imagine the lives of those who worked, lived, and sheltered in these remarkable spaces.
Origins in Sandstone: A City Built on Soft Rock
What makes Nottingham unique is its soft, workable Sherwood Sandstone, a geological blessing that has shaped the city’s development for well over a thousand years. Since at least the Anglo-Saxon era, residents have carved into these rocks to create spaces for storage, craft production, refuge, and even domestic living.
Unlike natural caverns formed by water erosion or volcanic activity, the caves beneath Nottingham are entirely hand-carved. This means that every smooth curve, every arch, and every chamber was painstakingly shaped by the hands of labourers who used simple tools to hollow out the rock. The sandstone is strong enough to support rooms and passageways yet soft enough to carve, and this combination led to centuries of excavations.
By the Middle Ages, Nottingham’s caves were used as:
- Cellars for storing ale, food, and perishable goods
- Workshops for crafts such as tanning and brewing
- Houses for some of the city’s poorest residents
- Passageways used by merchants and smugglers
- Latrines and water cisterns
- Shelters during times of war and crisis
The result is an underground city that mirrors, in many ways, the history and growth of the one above.
A Walk Through Time: Experiencing the City of Caves
A visit to the City of Caves takes you through a sequence of chambers, each representing a different period in Nottingham’s long history. Guides or audio tours provide a vivid narrative, but even without them, the atmosphere of the caves is palpable. Cool air, low stone ceilings, echoes of footsteps, and the faint smell of damp earth combine to create an immersive experience.
Medieval Tannery
One of the most striking sections of the site is the medieval tannery. Tanning was a messy, foul-smelling business that used animal hides, lime, and urine to produce leather. Because of their smell, tanneries were often placed underground or away from the main town. Nottingham’s caves offered the perfect environment. Here you can still see the stone vats, carved directly from the rock, where skins once soaked in solutions to strip hair and soften the material.
Standing in this chamber brings the medieval world startlingly close—imagine labourers working by torchlight, the oppressive smell of chemicals, and the constant dripping of water into the stone basins.
World War II Air-Raid Shelter
Moving forward in time, one of the most emotional parts of the City of Caves is the WWII air-raid shelter. During the Blitz, Nottingham residents flocked underground to escape bombs targeting the city’s factories and industrial sites. The caves were expanded and fitted with wooden benches, chemical toilets, and lighting.
Graffiti from the 1940s—scribbled messages of fear, boredom, or hope—remains visible on the walls. In these moments, the caves became not a place of industry or poverty but a sanctuary. Families huddled together, listening anxiously for the sounds above, waiting for the all-clear sirens. This part of the tour is a stark reminder of how the caves have continually adapted to the city’s needs.
Cellars, Dwellings, and Everyday Life
Not all caves served dramatic purposes. Many were simply cellars for houses that once stood above them. Some were used as living quarters—during the 17th and 18th centuries, when poverty struck the city’s lower classes, families lived in dim, cramped rooms carved into the rock. These “cave homes” were cheap, sheltered, and close to work, though they lacked sanitation and fresh air.
Archaeological evidence shows soot-blackened ceilings, hearths, niches for lamps, and carved steps worn smooth by centuries of use. In some caves, the grooves made by iron picks can still be seen on the sandstone walls.
These humble chambers reveal a side of Nottingham rarely told in history books: the resilience of ordinary people who made do with what they had.
A Hidden Economy: Craft and Industry Underground
The caves also tell a story of Nottingham’s development as a centre of craft and trade. During the medieval and early modern periods, craftspeople used the caves as cool, stable environments for:
- Brewing ale
- Storing food
- Crafting leather goods
- Working with timber
- Managing their commercial stock
As industries like lace-making and textiles flourished in the Victorian era, the caves continued to serve as storage spaces and workshops for merchants and factory owners. They provided natural insulation and helped regulate humidity, making them ideal for storing delicate goods.
Some caves were even used as illegal drinking dens or places for secret meetings. The subterranean world offered privacy that the streets above did not.
Caves Beneath the Castle and Beyond
Although the City of Caves attraction focuses on the Broadmarsh area, Nottingham’s cave network extends across much of the city. Many pubs, including the legendary Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, still use caves as beer cellars, snug drinking rooms, or storage areas. Under Nottingham Castle, an extensive system of tunnels and enclosed staircases served as escape routes and storerooms for the castle’s occupants.
One of the most famous, Mortimer’s Hole, is said to have been used during the capture of Roger Mortimer in 1330, when King Edward III stormed the castle to arrest his mother Isabella’s lover.
These stories—part legend, part documented history—give Nottingham’s underground world a mythic quality that captivates visitors.
Preservation and Modern Discovery
For centuries, many caves were forgotten—filled in, built over, or simply lost to memory. It was not until the 20th century that archaeologists and historians began systematically documenting and protecting them.
Today, the City of Caves is managed by the National Justice Museum, which ensures that this heritage is accessible and preserved. New caves are occasionally discovered during construction projects, reminding residents and historians that Nottingham’s underground world still holds secrets.
A Unique Heritage Site
What makes the City of Caves so extraordinary is not just their scale but their continuous use over more than a thousand years. Few urban centres in Europe have such an extensive, lived-in subterranean history. They offer a physical timeline carved into rock—a record of work, life, survival, industry, and community.
Visiting the caves today is both educational and evocative. It is an opportunity to stand inside spaces shaped by countless lives and events. It is history not preserved behind glass but carved into the earth, raw and immediate.
Conclusion: A Journey Into Nottingham’s Hidden Heart
The City of Caves is more than a tourist attraction—it is a testament to Nottingham’s adaptability, creativity, and resilience. From medieval tanners and Victorian merchants to wartime families seeking shelter, the caves have witnessed centuries of human experience. They remain a powerful symbol of the city’s deep-rooted history and the many lives, ordinary and extraordinary, that have shaped Nottingham’s identity.
Exploring them is to journey beneath the surface of time itself, uncovering a part of the city that remains hidden from view but central to its story.
