One of the items in my calendar for last Saturday was to visit Reigate's caves. The caves are only open a few days each year, and this past Saturday was the first day that they were open for the year. Other dates are in June, July, August, and September. There are three caves to visit. The oldest is Baron's Cave, which was a part of the castle, and which I will be covering in another post. The other is Tunnel Road Caves, and this can be visited in two parts. One part is a visit by guided tour only, and the other part is a museum with uses for the cave and World War II information as the caves were used as shelters. (Read my post about Reigate Castle and Barons' Cave.)
I arrived early to buy tickets, and I was happy that I did as I was on the first tour of the Tunnel Caves, and when we finished the tour, we saw a very long queue for the tickets. The museum tunnels were a bit busy too, and we had to wait in the queue for Baron's Caves and had a very large and rushed tour, which made it impossible to get any photographs.
Reigate is built on sandstone, and the sand here is very good quality and fine. Sandstone mines opened up under the town, and the sand was sold to make clear glass bottles (amongst its other uses, such as covering the floor in pubs to clean them). Miners dug the tunnels to escavate as much sand as possible without the caves caving in.
To do this, they created large stone pillars, which are angled and arched (with arched ceilings) to take the load. The shapes and size of the pillars can be seen in my photographs.
The caves stopped being mined when a bit of one tunnel caved in in the castle grounds. As a result, some of the tunnels were filled, and some of them were bricked up. Some access was provided in some areas to fix issues in the caves. Others were bricked up and filled in because of their proximity to a bank's vault. The caves used to have a bar in them, and they were used in World War II as air raid shelters. Concerts have also performed in the caves. They were also used for a cycle club meet-up point as a shop sold bicycles on Tunnel Road outside. The same group then formed the rifle club, which still uses the tunnels today and which has set up targets to shoot at.
The caves were also used for dumping trash. Several barrels were thrown down into the cave, and only the metal rims survive. Most of the glass bottles were completely smashed, but a couple of intact ones and pots were found. Also, a meat refridgerator was found.
During the years, people have made carvings on the soft sandstone walls. Others have stolen sand.
The caves ceased mining in 1862, and this was carved into the end of one of the tunnels.
After the guided tour, we walked across the road to the Tunnel Caves Experience (also known as the East Side Caves). These tunnels of the caves were used as the shelters and for storage vaults for shops, and the most notable was used to store alcohol. Information about the stone mined in the caves can also be seen in one room, and there is a Roman tile kiln on display as well.
One of the rooms holds a Morrison Table and is kitted out to look like the war years. The Morrison Table was used to shelter under. In case your home was hit by an indirect bomb and the building structure collapsed, you could be safe if you hid underneath the table.
In the next room, we could sit inside an Anderson Shelter, which could survive an indirect hit from a bomb. These shelters were put up by average citizens for a place to hid during the air raids. Over 3.6 million of them were made, and most of them were given back to the council, although some were kept to be used as garden sheds.
Another room showed the facilities, and both the women's and men's restrooms were available to see as they would have appeared back in the war.
I will be covering the older cave, Baron's Cave, and the castle in another post. Have you ever visited Reigate caves?
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