Money in Smuggling…
They say that the ‘hills have eyes’ but in the case of the expansive East Hill, they also have ‘hidden’ caves; although as the route is littered with signs declaring ‘Caves This Way’, they aren’t exactly hidden.
Formed from sandstone rock, they probably date back to the last Ice Age, and were partially manmade, excavated over the centuries to make flooring and gravestones. Sandstone is a unique and now rather expensive material, with an ability to appear warm in winter and cool in summer – as a result the temperature of the caves is kept at 51F all year round.
Although not directly connected to the sea, the caves provided a safe haven for the ‘duty-free’ goods traders working up and down the Kent and Sussex coast. At its peak in the 1700s, smuggling accounted for one quarter of all England’s overseas trade, with an estimated 40,000 people employed in the illegal profession. The penalties for smuggling were high (death), but so were the rewards. Excise taxes on tea, for instance, were 129 per cent, so the gains to be made were huge and it wasn’t until William Pitt slashed it to 12.5 per cent that the country saw a dramatic fall in wellorganised gangs. The fact that Pitt replaced it with the window tax produced a different kind of criminal – homeowners who literally bricked up their glazed apertures.
Smugglers Adventure
During the Napoleonic wars, the caves were turned into a military hospital for Wellington’s troops. In the 1970s, a young archaeology student made the thrilling discovery of some bottles and a cut-off arm bone from a less fortunate patient.
Closed off in the early 19th century, they lay undisturbed until 1825 when the vicar of St Clements asked local man Joseph Golding to cut a garden seat into the side of the cliff. To his great surprise, Golding’s pick went through the rock and he found himself gazing down into a huge, cavernous space.
He dedicated his life to enlarging and ‘renovating’ the caves, taking 11 years to carve a 140ft-long sloping, candlelit walkway into the lower caverns. Golding died of a lung infection after its completion (all that dust), but his work continued, with his vast underground ballroom used for tea dances and jazz concerts. During the bombardments of the Second World War, 600 people regularly slept in the cave’s makeshift air-raid shelters, while on the open hill above, an Anti-Aircraft Battery was manned in part by Winston Churchill’s daughter, Mary.
Since the late 1980s, the 5,000 sq metre caves have been remodelled as the Smugglers Adventure, a tourist attraction and home to a variety of spooky waxwork models and realistic dungeons. Sadly, the subterranean gift shop can’t sell you any of the precious sandstone, but you can buy a rather realistic skeleton.
Next week: Flower power…
Formed from sandstone rock, they probably date back to the last Ice Age, and were partially manmade, excavated over the centuries to make flooring and gravestones. Sandstone is a unique and now rather expensive material, with an ability to appear warm in winter and cool in summer – as a result the temperature of the caves is kept at 51F all year round.
Although not directly connected to the sea, the caves provided a safe haven for the ‘duty-free’ goods traders working up and down the Kent and Sussex coast. At its peak in the 1700s, smuggling accounted for one quarter of all England’s overseas trade, with an estimated 40,000 people employed in the illegal profession. The penalties for smuggling were high (death), but so were the rewards. Excise taxes on tea, for instance, were 129 per cent, so the gains to be made were huge and it wasn’t until William Pitt slashed it to 12.5 per cent that the country saw a dramatic fall in wellorganised gangs. The fact that Pitt replaced it with the window tax produced a different kind of criminal – homeowners who literally bricked up their glazed apertures.
Smugglers Adventure During the Napoleonic wars, the caves were turned into a military hospital for Wellington’s troops. In the 1970s, a young archaeology student made the thrilling discovery of some bottles and a cut-off arm bone from a less fortunate patient.
Closed off in the early 19th century, they lay undisturbed until 1825 when the vicar of St Clements asked local man Joseph Golding to cut a garden seat into the side of the cliff. To his great surprise, Golding’s pick went through the rock and he found himself gazing down into a huge, cavernous space.
He dedicated his life to enlarging and ‘renovating’ the caves, taking 11 years to carve a 140ft-long sloping, candlelit walkway into the lower caverns. Golding died of a lung infection after its completion (all that dust), but his work continued, with his vast underground ballroom used for tea dances and jazz concerts. During the bombardments of the Second World War, 600 people regularly slept in the cave’s makeshift air-raid shelters, while on the open hill above, an Anti-Aircraft Battery was manned in part by Winston Churchill’s daughter, Mary.
Since the late 1980s, the 5,000 sq metre caves have been remodelled as the Smugglers Adventure, a tourist attraction and home to a variety of spooky waxwork models and realistic dungeons. Sadly, the subterranean gift shop can’t sell you any of the precious sandstone, but you can buy a rather realistic skeleton.
Next week: Flower power…