Explorers Crawled Through A Rabbit Hole And Entered These Creepy Caves Shrouded In Mystery

Sounds like a slightly weird fantasy? Well, it’s not. This underground structure really does exist about 120 miles north-west of London and you do enter it via what looks like the entrance to some animal’s lair. Of course there’s a very famous rabbit hole in literature, the one that appears in Lewis Carroll’s 19th-century fantasy Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  

What you’ll find down that Shropshire burrow entrance is hardly less astonishing than what Alice found in her rabbit hole. The interior, completely dry even when it’s wet outside, is skillfully carved from the local sandstone. The underground marvel is called the Caynton Caves although the website of Historic England, a government-backed agency, prefers to call it a grotto. 

One man who took the trouble to track down the entrance of Caynton Caves and to explore them was photographer Michael Scott from the city of Birmingham, just 20 miles from the site. He explored the caverns in 2017 and described his experience to the BBC. He said, “I traipsed over a field to find it, but if you didn’t know it was there you would just walk right past it.”

Intriguingly, Scott continued, “Considering how long it’s been there it’s in amazing condition, it’s like an underground temple.” That’s right; the carefully carved caves reminded him of a place of worship. There’s more. The BBC report says that Historic England found evidence that somebody had been using the caves to practice “black magic rites.”

Scott continued with his description of exploring the caverns, which he said were “quite cramped.” He recalled, “I had to crouch down and once I was in it was completely silent. There were a few spiders in there but that was it. It was raining so the slope down was quite sludgy but inside the cave was bone dry.”

Historic England’s detailed description of the caves adds to the mystique. Its report states that the interiors have “columns left by excavation as cylinders with bases and capitals (and occasional annulets); neo-Norman decoration to bays between columns, one neo-Norman doorway with beak-heads and roll molding; decorative quatrefoils and designs [also] abound.” 

You don’t need to understand all those technical architectural terms to get the picture that what you’ll find if you venture into these caves is truly amazing. Yet there they are, just three feet below the surface of the Shropshire countryside. But who on earth built them? And what was their original purpose?

One thing we do know is the origin of the name Caynton Caves. That comes from the nearby country mansion Caynton Hall. It’s always been a private home and its contemporary owners also own the land where the grotto is. Caynton Hall was built in 1803 after an American, one W.J. Yonge, inherited the land where it stands from his sister-in-law. 

You might think that owning the Caynton grotto would be rather an attractive proposition. Think again. In fact the caves have been a source of trouble for the owners over the years. Even although there have been multiple efforts to block the entrance, people still keep breaking in, and the trespassers often leave an unholy mess behind.

As we’ve mentioned, it seems some have used the mysterious labyrinth for strange and unusual practices. The Birmingham Live website reported a bizarre story in 2017. Apparently, one day two fellows knocked on the door of Caynton Hall. Sheepishly they asked if they could enter the caves to retrieve their ceremonial robes. The two, it transpired, were warlocks. 

The Birmingham Live website also interviewed Dominic Wass, who had been living on the Caynton estate for a couple of years. He said, “There’s definitely some strange stuff gone on down there. It’s surreal to have two warlocks knock on your door, but at least they asked. It’s the mess left behind by the ones that don’t. Some of the requests have been very weird.” 

Wass went on to lament the unsuccessful attempts to protect the caves from unauthorized entry. He said, “You can put up razor-wire, but if someone gets injured, we’re the ones who land in trouble. People don’t seem to realize that this is private property and they are trespassing. It’s a difficult one. Publicity just leads to more people trying to get into the caves.” 

Birmingham Live went on to outline the upgraded security measures to which the owners of the grotto had turned. They’d installed CCTV cameras, fitted stronger fencing and shut off a path leading to the grotto’s entrance. There was even a proposal to fill in the caverns, but that plan was shelved. Whether these measures will deter those set on using the caves for nefarious purposes remains moot. 

The mystery of who carved the Caynton caves out of the Shropshire sandstone and when they did it thickened in 2019. That was when a teacher called Mark Lawton revealed something which, to say the least, was startling. Lawton had explored the caves in 1985 and while he did, he made an extraordinary discovery. An apparently ancient sword.

Lawton told the BBC, “We were walking towards the bottom end of the cave; it doesn’t really go anywhere and it was pitch black when we saw something sticking out of the sand. I pulled it and out came the sword.” And it wasn’t just any sword, although at the time Lawton had no inkling of the significance of his find. 

In fact, Lawton took the sword to his home in the village of Wombourne in Staffordshire, little more than a 20-minute drive from the caves. Speaking to local newspaper The Shropshire Star he said that, “I have never done anything with [the sword]. It has been sitting on my windowsill ever since.” 

But as Lawton told the BBC “I’d always wondered about its age.” Finally, after more than three decades he decided to try and find out more about this mysterious sword. So he sent the battered weapon, which was rusted, missing its point and with the hilt snapped off the blade, to a specialist. 

So the sword ended up in the hands of Caroline Dennard, an expert in military antiques who was working for an auction firm called Halls Fine Art. She told The Shropshire Star about her initial assessment of the weapon. She declared, “It’s got all the hallmarks of a genuine sword from the 13th century. It’s got the right shape and it seems genuine.” 

Dennard continued, “In populated areas knights were the only people authorized by the king to carry weapons, so it is a probable assumption that this was owned and carried by a knight. Similar ones in excavated condition can make anywhere from $2,800 to $4,250. There’s a condition issue with this. It’s been broken at the tip and has probably lost eight inches.”

Speaking to the BBC, Dennard was a little more cautious in her assessment of the sword. Although she told them, “Stylistically it’s very in line with other swords I’ve seen,” she also pointed out that the weapon would have to be put through tests. Only then could the possibility that it was actually a Victorian replica be ruled out. 

In fact, the sword’s condition does seem to have affected its value – ultimately it sold at auction for a little short of $750. The Halls’ sale note stated that, “Although local mythology ties this cavern system to the Knights Templar, some historians believe the caves to be 19th century in date. Nevertheless, this sword is a historically interesting find and certainly warrants further research.” 

As far as we know, such further research is yet to happen, so the sword’s actual age remains unknown. Plus, we’re none the wiser as to how this weapon found its way to the Caynton grotto. But that brief sale note gets to the nub of this intriguing conundrum. For there are two theories about the origins of the Caynton Caves. And they can’t both be true. 

Let’s deal first with the idea that the caves actually date back to medieval times. It’s a local legend that the subterranean chambers and passages were actually built as a refuge for the ancient order of the Knights Templar. Dominic Wass, who we met earlier, told newspaper the Birmingham Mail about the tale that circulates in this part of England. 

Wass said, “Very little is known about why they are there. There are all kinds of stories. We were told they were dug by followers of the Knights Templar. They wanted a place where they could worship without being persecuted. It must have taken them a long time to create.” So who were these Knights Templar?

The Knights Templar, or the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon to give the group its full name, was founded in about 1128. The man behind this military and religious order was a French nobleman called Hugues de Payens. The key point is that the Knights Templar body appeared at the time of the Crusades. 

The purpose of the Crusades was to wrest control of the Holy Lands in the Middle East from Muslim rulers. And so de Payens founded his order of holy warrior knights in Jerusalem and headquartered it on the Temple Mount, hence the name Knights Templar. The body was given impetus in 1139 when Pope Innocent III lent his formal and public support to the order. 

The Knights Templar was a strict order – its rules and regulations included one forbidding members from kissing their own mothers! Cursing, booze and gambling were all banned while chastity, obedience and poverty were all compulsory. Despite this asceticism the order became immensely influential right across Europe. 

At one point, the Knights Templar ran an extensive fleet of ships plying routes in the Mediterranean and even owned the island of Cyprus outright. Plus they managed a wide-reaching banking network. So why would they end up with an underground complex entered by a muddy rabbit-hole in the depths of the Shropshire countryside? 

In any case Philip rounded up the Templars and forced them into confessing all kinds of heinous crimes ranging from devil-worship to financial fraud. Subsequently Philip had many Templars burnt at the stake. To make matters worse, the Pope of the day, Clement V, withdrew his approval of the order. Any surviving Templars were now effectively outlaws. 

That drastic loss of status applied in England as well where the Templars had established themselves in London. You can still visit their medieval headquarters in the capital city, the 1185 Temple Church. With their downfall in France, many of their riches in France and England were handed over to a rival order, the Knights Hospitallers. Mind you, it’s believed that Philip and the English king, Edward II, helped themselves to a large chunk of the wealth. 

As the History website points out, most experts agree that the Knights Templar order was entirely dissolved seven centuries ago. But there are those who believe the group actually lived on as a clandestine organization operating in secret. In fact, the Knights Templar have attracted many myths and conspiracy theories over the years. 

There are those that believe that the Templars hid the Shroud of Turin, the cloth allegedly used to cover the body of Christ. Others say that the order held fragments of Jesus’ cross or even possessed the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. Additionally author Dan Brown featured the Knights Templar in his hugely popular 2003 conspiracy thriller The Da Vinci Code. 

So there we have it, an explanation for the Caynton Caves’ origin. The persecuted Knights Templar needed a hideaway where they could worship in safety, hidden from their persecutors. So they carved this extraordinary labyrinth of chambers in the Shropshire countryside. It’s a great story. But is it true?

Sadly, in a word, no. In a 2017 article the History website comprehensively debunked this intriguing but entirely fictional story. One man the website interviewed was medieval historian Dan Jones. He was especially blunt in his demolition of the tale. He pointed out that, “It takes about two clicks on Google or a phone call to English Heritage to debunk this story.” English Heritage is the body entrusted with looking after the nation’s historic buildings. 

Jones continued, lambasting the press for perpetuating the Knights Templar story. He said, “The real question then is why has every news network from Fox to the BBC carried threadbare headlines with such glee?” Jones did not leave his caustic rebuttal there. He went on to try and explain how such a tale could have arisen. 

Jones said, “People love the romance and the possibility of the Templar story and over time the order has come to be seen as an all-powerful secret sect who operate untouched across the generations, warping history from the shadows.” And we can see this story that the Caynton Caves are somehow connected to the Knights Templar as having similar origins. 

So perhaps it’s easy enough to debunk the Knights Templar myth about the Caynton Caves, but what’s the truth? That is a little harder to pin down. The quasi-government agency Historic England is probably the best authority to which to turn. In its website entry for the grotto, it describes the caves like this, “Probably late C18 or early C19, but undateable. Hollowed out of rock in side of disused quarry, approached by very small unmarked entrance.” 

So the truth is elusive. We can be fairly sure about the dates given by Historic England, meaning the caves are nothing like 700 years old. But we still don’t know who actually constructed them. What’s more, we remain ignorant of their true purpose. Perhaps the caves are just another example of an English folly, a structure created purely for amusement.