Margate Caves

By Rod LeGear

The man-made underground structure known as Margate Caves was initially dug as a small chalk mine to procure chalk to burn for lime, with approximately 2000 tonnes removed during its active life.

Sometime after abandonment, it was rediscovered and adapted for use as a wine store, ice well and later was opened to the general public in 1863. It remained open on and off as a popular visitor attraction until 2004, when it was forced to close by the Health and Safety Executive because of safety concerns.

The local community objected strongly to plans to build over the site, and the Friends of Margate Caves was formed to save the Caves from being permanently sealed. In 2013 a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, The Margate Caves Community Education Trust (TMCCET), was formed to secure a long-term lease and raise funds needed to re-open the Caves. Remedial work was undertaken so that the Caves were structurally sound and fully complied with modern-day safety regulations. In conjunction, an archivist was appointed to collate artefacts and archival material relevant to the Caves and research its history, testing and challenging the hitherto accepted ‘facts’ as necessary. This occasioned a significant revision of its history, the results of which, with referenced sources, are now lodged in the Margate Caves Archive.

The Caves site is located at 1, Northdown Road, Cliftonville, Margate, Kent, CT9 1FG and is centred on NGR TR 3573 7114. The Caves consist of several lofty hand-cut chalk galleries up to 9m high leading from a rectangular shaft, with other tunnels cut at right angles to form pillars of unworked chalk to support the ground above. At the end of the northern chamber, a short passage leads to a well shaft more than 13m deep, which continues 8m upwards to the surface where it is capped. This passage also gives access to the modern emergency exit stairs. The northern chamber also contains the bricked-up remains of an old entrance stairway. A low passage leads to a small circular chamber, which has another small passage that links with the northeast gallery.

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Fig 1: Inside the caves – image of King George depicted as a farmer

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Fig 2: Plan of Margate Caves

Both of the western galleries have small blocked shafts in the roof that once opened to the surface. The two western galleries are linked by a short tunnel excavated post-extraction. Off of one of the western galleries, a small round chamber has been excavated in the floor in the entrance to a former ovoid-shaped ice well. The other western gallery contains the entrance to a second ice well. The two ice wells are linked together by a small tunnel at a lower level and joined by a short passage to the main caves. A long sloping tunnel leads up to the surface and forms the modern entrance.

The site’s history, as given in old guide books, states that in the latter half of the 18th century, a gentleman named Francis Forster built a large red-brick house on the site, which he called

Northumberland House. In 1798 his gardener, whilst digging behind the building, discovered the Caves.

Research by archivist Chris Pearson has shown that the given discovery date of 1798 is highly dubious. The red brick mansion was probably built sometime in the 1780s by Captain Hooper, who had built a horizontal mill and another mansion called Hooper

House nearby. By 1791, it was in the occupation of Mrs Margaret Bryan who ran a girls’ boarding school on the premises, which was named Bryan House at that time. The house was renamed Northumberland House by Francis Forster when he acquired the property in 1807.

After the Caves were accidentally found, Forster enthusiastically started to convert the underground space for his amusement and made many alterations, including constructing a proper entrance, connecting a well shaft to the caves, and digging two ice wells.

He had several murals painted on the chalk walls, retouched many times over the years, and new ones added. Some of the original paintings have faded to almost nothing and today can just be made out as faint ghost images. Forster used the caves as a wine cellar and often entertained his friends with underground parties. When he died in 1835, the caves were abandoned and neglected until 1863, when a local shopkeeper and entrepreneur, John Norwood, rented them from the landowner and opened them to the paying public. However, it seems the enterprise only lasted a few years.

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Fig 3: View of typical gallery found in Margate Caves

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Fig 4: The Thanet Hunt

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Fig 5: Paintings on view throughout the Margate Caves

Several years later, the western half of Northumberland House had become the vicarage of the nearby, newly constructed Holy Trinity Church. In 1907 the vicar, Dr Pryor, became very interested in the caves and set about clearing out debris and rubbish and opening them to the public. The caves remained a popular tourist attraction up until 2004, when safety concerns forced them to close.

TMCCET took over the site and secured funds to enable the caves to be safely opened again. Plans for a new purpose-built visitor’s centre incorporating a ticket office, café, community rooms and an interpretation room that would give the history of the Caves and their context in the local landscape were submitted and approved. Before the erection of the new visitor centre, the Trust commissioned an archaeological evaluation of the site that was undertaken by the Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey Company (SWAT) in April 2018.

The Trust insisted that it was conducted as a community- based project with members of the public encouraged to participate under the guidance of professional archaeologists.

This was highly successful, with a large number of volunteers helping to uncover the past landscape.

The two-week excavation found the continuation of an Iron Age ditch found during a Canterbury Archaeological Trust excavation nearby in 2012 and evidence of occupation in the Bronze and Iron Age, with finds including a crouched burial of a 34-year-old

Iron Age male which was excavated on the last day of the dig by an enthusiastic young volunteer.

The archaeology examined by SWAT is likely to be an extension of an enclosed settlement associated with the possible promontory Hill Fort some 250m away. Some of the finds are now on display in the Margate Caves visitor centre.

A more detailed referenced history of the caves can be seen at: https://kentarchaeology.org.uk/ publications/member-publications/ margate-caves-cliftonville and on the Cave’s website: https:// www.margatecaves.co.uk/

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Fig 6: Community Excavation

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Fig 7: Crouch Burial