Royston Cave: A Subterranean Enigma from the Past
Royston Cave is a cylindrical chamber carved into the rock, 8 meters high and 5 meters wide in diameter. No one knows who made it, nor what its purpose was. It is a unique structure in Great Britain (and perhaps in the world). According to some, it dates back to the time of the Templars, while others think it may be much older, dating back to the Neolithic era.
Royston Cave is a small man-made cave located in Hertfordshire, England. The cavity is located under the junction of Ermine Street and Icknield Way and has a cylindrical shape, with a height of approximately 8 meters and a diameter of 5 metres.
No one has any idea who created the cave or what its purpose was. Over the years, many hypotheses have been put forward, from the use of the cavity by the Knights Templar to the Neolithic flint mine, from its use as a prison to the cell for anchorite monks.
In reality, none of these theories are based on convincing evidence and the origin of Royston Cave remains a mystery to this day.
The cavity was first spotted in August 1742, while a workman was busy digging holes to install a new stall in a market. The newly discovered cave was filled with dirt and rock fragments. Once the room was cleaned, numerous sculptures and engravings on the internal walls came to light, some of which, according to scholars, are 800 years old. Many engravings were originally colored, but today only a few traces of color remained visible. Furthermore, some believe that the cave was once divided into two levels by a wooden floor.
On the walls of Royston Cave these are mostly images of a religious nature, such as Saint Catherine, the Holy Family, the Crucifixion, the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence and a figure holding a sword that could represent Saint George or Saint Michael the Archangel. Some holes drilled under the sculptures appear intended to hold candles or lamps.
One of the main theories about the origin of Royston is that the cave was used by the Knights Templar before their dissolution by Pope Clement V in 1312. Some figures engraved in a damaged section of the cave appear to depict two knights riding a single horse, perhaps the remains of a Templar symbol.
Another theory proposes that Royston Cave was used as a warehouse by Augustinian monks. As their name suggests, the Augustinians were an order founded by St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo. The Augustinians arrived in England during the reign of Henry I, in the 12th century. Hertfordshire was an important center of English monasticism and the Augustinian monastery functioned continuously for over 400 years. Perhaps the monks used the cavity as a cool cistern to store their products and as a chapel for personal prayer.
Finally, some scholars hypothesize that the cylinder excavated in the rock may have been used as a flint mine in the Neolithic era, starting from 3 thousand BC, a precious quarry for obtaining material to make axes and other tools. However, the chalk found in the cavity only allows the creation of small flint nodules, generally unsuitable for ax production. This data raises some doubts about the theory.
Therefore, to this day there is still a lot of mystery about the creators of the Royston cave and its real purpose. However, it is possible that an original group created the cave and, after abandoning it, it was then used by another group.
Royston Cave is now open to the public and requires regular maintenance and restoration. Recently, it was discovered that the larvae of some insects are seriously damaging the walls of the structure. In August 2014, the intervention to prevent such damage was successfully completed. Instead of using insecticides, the workers removed some clods of earth, thus depriving the larvae of nourishment. Now the challenge is to avoid flooding and find a system to limit vibrations due to vehicular traffic on the surface, in order to preserve the cave in the future.
