Catacombs - Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
Secrets wait to be uncovered!
Sorry, we do not have any events for this location at the moment. Please keep an eye on our website for future dates.
Rock Cemetery (Formally Church Cemetery) opened its gates in 1856 and covers a sprawling 13 acres of land. The Cemetery is built on the site of an old sand mine which itself saw many deaths of miners and workers alike. Gallows Hill overlooks the Cemetery, where public executions took place for those who broke the law. The last hanging here was of a highwayman in 1827. Over 40,000 burials have taken place here over the past 167 years, but more secrets wait to be uncovered beneath the ground in the cemetery catacombs.
The catacombs are a series of eerie tunnels carved into the Earth beneath the cemetery. Footsteps, muffled conversations and shadow figures lurking in the tunnels have all been witnessed whilst in the catacombs. Are you brave enough to stand in the pitch black of the catacomb tunnels where there is no natural light and call out to unknown spirits from the beyond? Who or what will you make contact with?
Ghosts of Rock Cemetery Catacombs
The Catacombs date back hundreds of years and are steeped in mystery and intrigue, many people have reported hearing footsteps running down the tunnels despite being alone, are the miners still running trying to escape the cave ins?
A negative male presence has also been felt by many a visitor to the catacombs, whispering his name in people’s ears and affecting them with an overwhelming feeling of sadness.
With tales of Robin Hood and Druid sacrifice also connected to the site, as the darkness consumes the light and you move deeper into the catacombs, will you be brave enough to call out into the dark or conduct a lone vigil?
History of Rock Cemetery Catacombs
The cemetery began construction in 1851 (although didn’t open until 1856) following the enclosure acts of 1845. Church Cemetery, like many other cemeteries of this time, was created as a result of overpopulated city burial grounds.
In the centre of the cemetery is St Ann’s Valley, a sandpit containing paupers’ graves, 20 feet below the higher level of the main cemetery. Each heavy grey slab covers 20 or more bodies, many of them children, sharing one thing in common: in the early 20th Century, their families were too poor to afford a burial.
In olden days the gallows of Nottingham were situated where the entrance to the Church Cemetery now stands, and miserable criminals had to wend their way from the county and town prisons (which stood upon the High Pavement) up the Mansfield-road to meet their doom upon what was then called Gallows Hill.
At the foot of the hill was a large cavern known as Robin Hood’s Cave or Stable. Tradition has it that this was used by Robin and his outlaw band to hide in and stable their horses. It was from this base that Robin is said to have rescued Will Stutly from the nearby gallows.
When Excavation work was carried out here Rev. George Oliver observed the findings. He believed that he had seen evidence of a recognisable structure, and it was something he later called a ‘Druid Temple’.
