Cranham Caves

The Cranham caves are situated beneath the junction of the B4070 (Birdlip-Stroud) road.They are not natural caves at all, but are in fact old stone quarries from the19th Century. The stone was quarried underground because it was softer and easier to work before it was brought to the surface and dried out.
The Cotswold's are honeycombed with these underground working's most notably at Whittington and in the Minchinhampton common area although stone is still quarried in this way near Bath.
Most of these working's closed down in the early20th century and were promptly sealed up and forgotten, although old tales such as "a coach and horses can be driven underground from Whittington to Cleeve Cloud" persisted.A Mr. Price of Frocester has explored and surveyed many of them and gives a very interesting account of being the first person to enter them for over a century.

The Cranham caves however were left open and became a place to explore and party .
During the fifties it became a regular haunt for skiffle bands and there is a letter to Mr Raine the parish clerk,from a music promoter in Gloucester asking who the caves belonged to, as he wanted to establish a music club in the caves because "they represent the maximum of bizarness called for". Needless to say permission was not given and the Beatniks of Gloucester had to "get hip daddio" elsewhere!

Jim Drake, John Quilter, Jill Strange and Unknown in the caves 1936/7

In 1963 a young boy from Whiteway got lost in the caves and had to be rescued and the entrances were sealed up for safety reasons. In 1983 a keen local caver, Mr. David Tringham, found a way into the caves down a Badger hole and I was privileged to explore them with him. It was amazing to see all the names (some familiar) that had been burnt onto the walls, presumably with candles, and also the number of bats living in them . It was also quite disconcerting to hear how close the traffic was on the road above and in1997 a pipelaying gang discovered this when they almost lost a JCB whilst digging there and the cave roof had to be reinstated.
At this time the caves were sealed properly and proper batgrills were installed to allow the bats to live there unhindered.
One wonders with all the talk of a road tunnel for the grossly overcrowded A417 at Birdlip whether stone cannot be quarried in this way again to help pay for it, or is that just being naive?

Present entrance to the caves complete with bat grill and ubiquitous Mc Donalds rubbish!

Updated : 30/01/2003

15th March 2004: Mr Arthur Price will be talking to Cranham Local History Society About the Cotswold caves and Quarries.

Page created by M.P.Whitaker acting in a solo capacity thus indemnifying Cranham Local History Society.

Click here to return to the History index page

To return to Cranham.net click here