Had an unusual visit this Easter Sunday afternoon .. drove to nearby Royston to look at an unusual cave they found in 1742 under the town's market... It's a man-made cave, bell-shaped over 7m high, and hollowed out by hand with carvings dating back to the 1300s. The carvings are mostly Christian, with Knights and pagan symbols, leading folk to believe it was a hiding place for the Knights Templar. It was the most unusual place, it could have felt cold and eerie but I found it fascinating.
This is believed to be King David (he who wrote the Psalms and killed Goliath) as it is very alike a 13th century painting of him seeking help from above in Psalm 69. Sadly, you can see that grafitti is not just a 21st Century problem!
Thank you so much for your lovely comments on my dappled sky shot - hope you've had a wonderful Easter weekend and haven't eaten too many eggs (but how many is too many?!)
(Another carving on my 2nd album http://365project.org/filsie65/just-stuff/2012-04-08 if you're interested).
@helstor Thank you Helge. Yes it was quite dark - there was a little electric light and a tiny vent of daylight metres above us, so you could see clearly enough and the guide had a torch to point carvings out to us. I was surprised the shots came out as clearly as they did.
@peterdegraaff Yes - but at least it's 18th century graffiti! Apparently the chap who owned the land in 1790 got his workers to make a tunnel down (rather than ladder) then charged sixpence for folk to go down and see it. This was a fortune then and evidently the visitors thought adding their initials to the picture was better value for money!
I really don't know what gets into people to do such things! But it is certainly quirky that this is not a modern phenomena! Cool shot even with the 18th cent. graffiti!
