Hat tip here to the ongoing and excellent research being carried out by top local history ferret [Howmuch?], who’s located this smashing article from the August 16th, 1957 edition of the Walsall Observer. You’ll have to make do with my word-for-word transcript, as the original scan isn’t of decent enough quality to post here. I know it’s a bit off the normal patch for The Brownhills Blog, but I know there’s huge interest amongst the readership in the subject of the site, and this really is the first example of nascent urban exploration we’ve ever seen. Interspersed with the piece are a series of modern-day diving films taken in the depths by the diving group Deepjoy Films.
Please note that I’m not advocating anyone venture into the caverns. They’re clearly an incredibly dangerous place, and the divers seem to have done all the exploring for is, so just sit back and enjoy.
Below the flood lies secret of Linley Caves
Friday, August 16th, 1957.
Original caption: ‘The mysterious entrance to the old bomb-dump, with the electrically operated doors, suggested a scene from a space-travel film, but it has now disappeared beneath the water. The two pictures reproduced were taken from approximately the same position, but at an interval of two years.' This picture is how it appeared when the article was published in August 1957.
Linley Caves, those romantically fascinating underground workings on the edge of the new Redhouse Industrial Estate in Aldridge, have long excited the interest of local historians, but now, it seems, future generations will have to depend on written records which are handed down to them. Gradually since the war, the level of the flood waters has risen until now, the hefty steel doors of the main entrance are about 30ft. below the surface.
The doors, like the telephone wires and concrete road which runs to the water’s edge, are the last remaining reminders of the use to which the caves were put during war-time.
Limestone working there ceased before the war broke out and, in 1941, the Air Ministry took over. At a cost believed to have been about £250,000 the caverns were turned into an underground bomb-store. Walls and roofs were strengthened by means of steel supports and concrete roadways were laid in place of the old truck rails. There were two separate sets of gates on the main approach and check points were dotted about the surrounding grassland.
In the case of roof falls, an emergency exit with a brick staircase was built in the heart of the nearby woods. However, when the troops moved out, the area took on an appearance of neglect.
Grim Atmosphere
The decaying buildings of the nearby cement works added to the air of desolation and even today with the smart new factories of the industrial estate so close at hand, the spot is reminiscent of the scene of a holocaust. [Seems a bit dramatic – Bob] It’s broken and blackened walls and shattered roof-timbers have the air of a disaster of years gone by.
Legend, more than historical fact, has it that the workings date back to Roman times and t is said that Roman coins and a giant hammer have been found there, certainly a high amount of stone has been removed from them and in places the roof is 30ft high. THere are stories of tunnels running to the woods from parts of Rushall and the bed of limestone certainly does stretch from beneath Walsall. The Arboretum lake is undoubtedly the result of water logging of an abandoned pit.
In 1952 an East Anglian cement firm considered re-opening the workings, because the hydraulic lime from Linley was better for some building work than ordinary cement.
At that time only a proportion of of the lower caves were flooded, but the proposal was never acted upon, and the water was left to find its own level. Now it has done so, completely submerging the entrances, and it seems that unless some new scheme is mooted, Linley Caves are lost forever.
From the same article: How the Linley aves entrance looked in August 1955, two years previously.
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showed this article to my husband,he remembers going down these “caves”,they were a regular playround around 1954-ish,he was about ten,on entering the metal doors,it was a right turn ,they would be standing in mud ankle deep!
he and his older brother used to take bundles of little candles,(his grandad worked at a place in Walsall that made them,so they always had a good supply!!!)and explore,literally!crawling through narrow gaps,from one cave into another,on one occasion almost getting lost.
Health and safety were unheard of,!!
I may have commented before elesewhere, but a local history book ‘I Remember Rushall’ has details of an exploration of some of the caverns by kids in the 50s, IIRC. I’ve also read somewhere that when the Daw End canal bridge was replaced, divers went into the caverns to check for adequate support: that may be in the same book. Of course, this could all be hearsay.
HI Bob
I went there before it had started to fill completely with water The floor was very muddy and further down the water had started to rise so that’s as far as it was safe to go.
David
I was over on the site last year I noticed at least one large sink hole had formed I suspect due to sections of the cavern roof collapsing I wouldn’t be surprised if the tunnels are now blocked even to divers. Like Bob Says it’s an incredibly dangerous place from what I saw further catastrophic collapsing seems very likely.
hi, i am still diving here. its a fantastic place to dive and so big inside.would love as much info on the site and any old maps. as divers we do have a small survey map and i have been mapping inside myself the past few months
Cave Diving is prohibited by the owners of Linley Wood, signs have been errected. Linley Wood is private Land nobody has approached the owners to gain access to the caverns so you have been trespassing please refrain from doing so in future.
Perhaps you’d like to supply your name and contact details for those interested In obtaining permission. Until you do so, I have no reason to believe this is anything more than mischief-making.
Bob
Do you know why the entire wood is covered in CCTV, entirely barbed wired off and trespassing comes with a £20,000 fine. The sign near the container base claims it is closed for ‘scientific evidence’
Your woods were a lot of people’s daily walk. You should have just blocked the caverns off. I would love an answer as I only just discovered the place.
i used to play there as a kid. always finding army ordenance.
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I did leave details, Meeke’s Farm (part of the e-mail address!!)anyone who knows the area knows we have owned the land for over 50 years. We do not grant anyone access to the wood or caverns, the area is a SSSI.
hi, i belong to a cave rescue group and a diving club as well, hoping the owners read this as we would welcome a rescue training site in the midlands
If it is a site of scientific interest why do you not grant anyone access? This does not make any sense. Science means pursuing knowledge, how is that possible if you grant no one access? It is immoral that an individual should be allowed to own that sort of land anyway. It should be owned by a body of people like a council or trust.
Its there property, perhaps they dont want someone dying in there backyard ,would you,being qualified is no gaurantee you wont die.
Well, if you class the caverns as the owners backyard i would say we all have people dying in our backyards! No they are not in the owners backyard it is no where near their backyard. That’s the trouble with this country, if anyone gets injured, killed or does something other people do not do, (and often have no inclination to do), they want to ban it! I agree being qualified is no guarantee you wont die, but walking down the road to post a letter is no guarantee you wont die. Do you want to prohibit people doing that as well?
They should leave the woods and just block the caverns.
Jack, with respect, it’s private property the owner has bought and paid for so what they do with it is their own affair.
Nobody there without the owner’s express permission has always been trespassing
Bob
Sorry. My message didn’t have enough detail to what I was actually trying to say. You have a very fair point there but personally I think it should have been bought by the British Military or the council or something because I’m not that interested in the caves myself but I would just really like to go and walk my dog there again. But as I said I can respect that it’s private property and understand why they wouldn’t want people on there. As I said before I’m quite surprised that they could sell it to an ordinary buyer. Someone could have bought it, chopped all the trees down, completely blocked the caves and sold it as a field. Places like this should always go to councils or something. Thanks for your help Bob.
I don’t uderstand why Mrs Meeke is so much against cave divers diving in the caves. The site is as she explains a SSSI site but this is all to do with the type of limestone and having spoken to national heritage about tis subject they have absolutley nno problems with divers being on the SSSI site as they do not cauuse damage to the limestone unlike the cyclist and scramblers who use it all the time. I do understand her fustration with trespass but a little more dynamic thinking and she could very easily control access to qualified cave divers, as do the owners of the Holme Bank Chert Mine in Bakewell. Divers would willingly call and gain her permission if she allowed them
to dive.
Appologies for the few spelling mistakes above but hopefully you get the gist of the comments. The site is a truly fantastic place to dive and I did extensive diving there some time ago, exploring new passageways up to over a kilometre into the caves and down to a depth of 50m. Incidently we never came across any passages that led us to believe it links up with any of the other surrounding open cast mines. I have not dived there in a long time since finding out that we were trespassing. It is my understanding that the main lines that have been laid in there were done by one of the British Cave Diving Groups (CDG) top divers mr Duncan Price; he also did all the charting for those who have seen the mmappings.
Steve could you please contact me conserning the serveying of the caverns.Many thanks.Evo
Maybe the problem is that, as I understand it, the owners could be deemed liable (PDF, 33K) should anyone gain access to the mines and get injured or killed, and if they give permission, it seems their liability is greater? IANAL, but that’s how I read it.
The diving scenes are fascinating . I heard rumours about the caves but never knew the full story .
As is stated , this area backdates to the roman era . No one seems to know the full truth , i think
there have been deaths in that area of woodland . Myself & two others were over there one night
when it just started to get dark . We were just on our way out when we were pelted with bricks .
Ive got damn good eye sight but none of us saw anyone . I made a plan ! I said i will run through the middle & you two run either way flanking whoever it was . We did so but there was no one there . One our way out again & it happened again , so we went . No rational explanation for this ,
I reckon its a haunted location !!
Amazing read! I never ever thought it had such a history.
I am interested in why Linley Caves are called ‘Linley’. My father mentions them several times in his Letters Home from France in the First World War. He talks about them as if he had explored them with his sister & brothers before 1914 and he may have visited them when an apprentice surveyor to a mining engineering company in Walsall. I would like a decent photograph of the Caves to illustrate his Letters, which I am posting 100 years on from the date they were written. Website:- WW1 Parcels to the Front & Letters Home Hope someone can help. A decent photo of the Linley Woods would also be useful. Can anyone help?
Hi, I would love to hear the descriptions you have, and I can provide you with a photograph of the caves if still required?
Hi Bob. Just went to try and have a look but it’s all blocked off. We eventually found a sign saying it was closed because of ‘scientific interest’ and trespassing comes free with a whopping £20,000 fine. Do you know much about this? Thanis
Well, it was up for sale for a while and is private land, so sadly, the public have no right of access.
Not sure where the threat of a 20k one comes from though. But you would be trespassing.
Cheers
Bob
Thanks for your speedy reply Bob. As childish as it may seem, I think that some special military thing or something has bought it and found something worth high interest there or they’re thinking about using it again. There is barbed wire and everything and hidden CCTV all around the entire outskirts. I feel it’s something serious. Thanks again Bob :).
They just want to keep divers out of it I suspect, so they have to show they have taken steps to do so,they to avoid any legal implications if any one dies there diving.
Yeah I suppose you’re right. To be honest they should have just blocked the cave entrance off because those woods were a lot of people’s daily walk.
Apparently it’s a site of SSI. Site of special scientific interest.A it was being damaged by walkers and mountain bikes .you can be prosecuted for any damage on the site.
You’ve made a fair point but the SSI is the limestone I think but I’m not too sure, I think I read it on another comment. But then again biking and walking through the park lime Pits down the road could damage it but you can do that every day lol. Still you’ve made a fair point.
I used to play in the woods as a kid in the early to mid 60s. Makes me smile now, realizing that I was such a naughty boy for trespassing 😉
Thanks Bob for all the info … I had no idea at the time that the place had such history.
Morning All – I work at S Jones Containers right behind the woods and used to Walk through them during the summer on my lunch. It is now fully closed off with steel fence, barbed wire and CCTV all over the place. At the last count around 2 months ago i counted 19 CCTV cameras.
I have asked some colleague’s about the woods and they said it was used for WW1 as R.A.F. took-over the caverns which were used for storing bombs. A qucik google search and i came accross this.
http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/Aldridge/20thcentury.htm
Another colleague told me that when he was a child he used to ride his BMX around the woods in the late 70’s. He heard rumours that there was old old tank in the caves at the enterance where the steps were.
Thanks
Dave
I am really saddenned to hear that this childhood haunt of mine is now off limits but delighted to have been able to view some You Tube dive footage of the cavern. As kids in the early 70’s we used to sit on the edge of the open cavern with old refrigeraters strewn over the bottom and I remember the red brick steps leading down and even the part submerged metal door. The woods were definately haunted! I used to ride my bike up and down the slopes and cut through it to get to work on the industrial estate as an adult.
I remember riding my track bike around the woods in the early 60s and also being beat up by an older boy, I think his name was Tony Pickasgill. There was a rope swing and I believe one of the lads broke either one or both wrists when falling off. We used to get into a cave through a small opening and come out further along the passage, I remember we used to walk along the underground tunnel alongside water. Opposite Linley Wood there was an air raid shelter which also had a magnetic attraction, and of course the canal further down the road, a great place for shooting our air rifles at floating pots and pans from a local factory.