Helme caves

Below the ruins of Helme castle, a series of chambers has been cut into the sandstone cliff. They probably began as hollows worn out by springs and were later widened by hand; there were once said to be seven rooms, some since collapsed, with passages up to three metres high. Nobody knows who used them. Some think people hid here during the wars around the castle, and the favourite legend says secret tunnels lead from the caves up into the fortress. Locals called the place the Devil's Belly or Moses' Church, and in the 18th century a landowner began turning it into an English-style grotto but never finished.