Chislehurst Caves are a series of intersecting man-made tunnels and caverns covering some 22 miles (35.4 km)[1] in Chislehurst in the London Borough of Bromley. From the mid-13th to early 19th centuries the "caves" were created from the mining of flint and lime-burning chalk.
Today the caves are a tourist attraction and, although they are called caves, they are entirely man-made and were dug and used as chalk and flint mines. The earliest recorded mention of the mines and lime-burning kilns above dates from a 9th-century Saxon charter and then not again until around 1232AD; they are believed to have been last worked in the 1830s.[2]
During World War I the caves were used as an ammunition storage dump associated with the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. In the 1930s the tunnels were used for mushroom cultivation.
- ^ "English Prehistoric Sites - Chislehurst Caves". Archived from the original on 2 May 2015.
- ^ "Chislehurst Caves, Kent". The Heritage Trail. Archived from the original on 2 May 2015. Retrieved 18 April 2015.