Allen Ockenden (Originally published Pelobates 70, March 1996)
There are maybe 20 or 30 showcaves in the UK. The main caving regions obviously contain the lion’s share of these but there are other odd caves, mines and tunnels dotted about all over the place. Down in a sleepy corner of Kent is the seaside resort of Margate, which never seems to have recovered from the 1950s. It is, perhaps surprising that this town should have a show cave at all but amazing that this town has not just one but two! Making it no less than the show cave Mecca of Kent.
They are both close together in the chalk hill of Cliftonville at the East end of the town. Owned by the family business who still run the Chislehurst caves, the Margate Caves are a rather low key operation, quaintly old fashioned in its approach. They consist of a series of fine vaulted passages which from their appearance are in fact an old underground chalk quarry of the type which abound in Kent. A curious double chambered excavation has been created below the floor of the main cave known as the dungeon. It’s is difficult to asses but certainly was not a mining operation and must have other social or ritual purpose.
Further evidence that this cave found new uses somewhere in its history are a rather garish collection of wall paintings which adorn the walls. The commentary which replays on a continuous loop tape recording to accompany your self guided visit conjures up tales of the occult and ritual sacrifice but this is no more plausible than the theory that the caves were used by smugglers in another phase of its history. I was unable to locate any trace of the passage that supposedly connected these caves to the beach for this purpose.
The steep flight of steps that take you down the main cave is a relatively new addition. The cave would have originally been entered via a shaft and later via the cellars of the Vicarage (now demolished).
The Margate grotto is entered through a shop dedicated to rocks and fossils. A much more sophisticated operation than its near neighbour. This is very strange tunnel and who constructed it and why is not known. It is a single tunnel about 100ft long entered by steps at one end and passing a circular chamber to terminate in a square room at the far end. The whole of the walls and roof are covered in elaborate shell decoration in complex patterns which must have been a labour of several years for its creator.
As with many underground tunnels of this nature that seem to engender tales of the occult and fantasy which are probably well adrift from the real truth. Many bizarre explanations for the existence of this cave have been put forward over the years. The guide book would have you believe that it is over 1000 years old, and of Phoenician origin. The more likely explanation, perhaps, is that it is some kind of Georgian folly.
Both caves are curiosities in their own right and worth a visit, if by chance you are passing that way.
April 13, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I have just discovered your articles about the Margate Caves and Shell Grotto. It has brought back many memories as we visited them in about 1973 when the entrance to the caves were through the vicarage cellar. It was then that we became aware of an unexpected underground treasure. We paid our entrance fee to an elderly man in a shed and were told that there was a booklet available … or we could join a group and have a guided tour. We decided to take the tour. After descending the stairs to the cave floor we picked out the tour consisting of about twenty people and stood on the edge of the group. There was an even more elderly gentleman explaining the part of the system we were in … something about a chapel, church services, nuns and all sorts of things like that. He punctuated his speech by pointing a torch at various items (I think it would have been better if the torch had been switched on … oops it WAS on so perhaps a new battery was called for!). At one point he tried to show a feature on the roof and I swear that the beam from the torch seemed to lose the battle with gravity and bend back towards the ground before hitting the target. We asked a young lad in front of us if he knew what feature we were looking at as the guides voice had petered out as well. The lad said that he had been there for about ten minutes and hadn’t heard a word!
(Please dont think I’m being nasty with these comments … there is a moral!)
The tour continued and we could just catch the odd word or two but those words were relevant to the exercise. We heard …. smugglers …. tied up in that passage … tide comes in … dead ones washed out…
Wow we thought this is fascinating. The upshot was that when we left the cave we got on the end of the queue at the shed to buy a booklet.
It was then that I realised that we had witnessed the smartest bit of marketing strategy I had ever seen … and I include this story when I speak about a “foreigners guide to Britain” where I mention things they should try like ’speaking to people on the rush hour train in the morning’ or ‘trying out the famous echo in the reading room of the British Museum.’
All in all, a visit to the caves as well as the grotto should be included in anyone’s trip to the seaside at Margate.
Thank you so much for bringing these memories flooding back.