Royston Cave is often presented as something unique and isolated, but a remarkable account from 1856 suggests it once formed part of a landscape containing other mysterious chalk-cut chambers.
Local antiquarian Joseph Beldam, one of the earliest serious investigators of Royston Cave, reported excavations he undertook with Edmund Nunn on Royston Heath. They uncovered two adjoining chambers cut into the chalk, approximately five to seven feet deep. Both contained raised benches or seats, while the chambers were connected by an opening through a dividing wall.
What makes the discovery particularly interesting is that Beldam himself compared the structure with Royston Cave, suggesting that both may have been entered from above by ladder and were “probably of coeval date”. His dating should not be accepted uncritically today, but the comparison is important because Beldam had personally examined both sites.
His report contains another intriguing discovery. Within a quarter of a mile of Royston, Beldam described a separate underground complex of narrow passages surrounding blocks of solid chalk, themselves hollowed into “chambers or grottoes”. Finds included pottery and a Roman urn.
Beldam even recorded a local tradition that several other extensive caves or caverns around Royston had already been destroyed.
None of this proves that these structures shared the same date or purpose as Royston Cave. It does, however, raise a fascinating possibility: perhaps our Cave was not quite as isolated within the historic landscape as we have tended to imagine.
Source: Joseph Beldam, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Vol. IV, 1856, pp. 5–9.
The 2026 public tour season has now come to a close. For group bookings and special events, visit: www.roystoncave.co.uk
By Emma, Royston Cave Manager
