When I was a kid, my family used to spend all our holidays and any spare weekends we had in a static caravan we owned in a small village on the North Wales coast.
Near to the caravan park was an Abbey - a former stately home then occupied by Armalite nuns or something.
Then one summer, one of the lads I used to play with there asked whether I knew about the caves.....what caves? Bear in mind that we'd be coming here for years (we'd bought the caravan before I was born and I was about 12 by this stage). Peter and I thought we'd climbed every tree and had every adventure there was to be had....but we had seen nothing.
The abbey grounds were surrounded by a high wall - enough of a 'keep out' warning by itself you'd think!!? Anyway, climbing over the wall, we followed a short path through the thick trees and first of all came to a small ruined tower - like a caste keep. After we explored that, we followed the path through an abandoned graveyard 😮 until we came to a hole in the hill side. It was dark and the pocket-money torches we'd brought weren't up to the job at all...but we went in - slowly!
I've never been so scared but exhilarated at the same time. The caves - or grotto, as they seem to be known - are REALLY spooky. I don't think they're natural and they only go a short way into the hill side, but the way the passages and small side chambers twist and turn aound the central space that's open to the sky, means there's a lot to explore.
It took as several visits - getting braver each time - to pluck up the courage to explore the deepest nooks and crannies - particularly the one that the headless monk sits in. The short passage leading down to that chamber, turns a really sharp corner and when you are stood at the threshold there's no real way of knowing what's down there - you have to decend into the darkness and turn the corner before you can see what horrors await.
The place is on Youtube now, so I'll let you explore at your own pace - link below (just the first 9 minutes, I'm not sure what they're filming after that). Please bear in mind the torch they use on the video is much much brighter than the torches we had - it makes the place look a LOT less scary.
To two twelve year old lads, the dark underground passages, carved out of the living bedrock, with gryphons, skeletons, gargoyles, cyclops and headless monks scared the bejasus out of us. Even once we were out of the grotto, we were so scared of getting caught, just for being on the wrong side of the wall!!!
It's an intriguing place and my grandad and I spent a good few hours in the local library hoping to find something - anything about it. But we drew a blank. Since the advent of the internet, I found out that the tower and the grotto are listed buildings - associated with the former stately home but as usual with these things, the listing is very dry and matter of fact.
I've often wondered if it had anything to do with the Hellfire Club (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfire_Club) but the Hellfire Club was quite a bit earlier. I can well imagine the sort of "obscene parodies of religious rites" attributed to the Hellfire Club being carried out under the light of the full moon and naked flame in this grotto.
Putting this post together has brought a lot of memories flooding back and as I sit here, I can still feel the sense of enormous relief we felt, every time we dropped back onto the ground on the 'safe' side of the abbey wall.
I did mange to get back with my two young daughters in 2006. This photo is from that visit - I didn't tell them about the skeleton carved into the rocky wall behind them until AFTER we got home!!!
Please, don't have nighmares - leave that to me!!!
I've never known a scarier place .
You want to try Croydon at pub closing time mate 😂. Fascinating account as always and great to hear the adventures of a young @Councillor Col Dog . We also holidayed year in year out in a static caravan, albeit in Sussex. Can relate to meeting same friends same fortnight every year then no contact whatsoever in between. Our site was near an ancillary RAF wartime airstrip (since privately owned) and the woods nearby (where I got terrified in the other thread) had the decaying remains of ramshackle barracks and incredibly a swimming pool (suspect that pre-dated and was probably why barracks got put there). Not in the same league as haunted caves but a great adventure playground for pre-teen boys. Pretty dangerous looking back. Empty swimming pool full of detritus and rotting floors in derelict buildings etc. Didn’t do us any harm as old fogeys often say. Thanks again for sharing.