Chislehurst Caves

Chislehurst Caves

I went to the Chislehurst caves in south east London...now, I thought I was gonna see natural caves, but they are actually man-made..It was originally dug for mining chalk and flint...
The caves are owned by the same Gardner family for generations..after mining was over they grew mushrooms in the caves because it was profitable back then when they had mushroom tax on imports..lol..

The caves are most famous for being the largest air raid shelter outside of London during the second world war..and during the war time, up to 15,000 people sheltered there every night!!! Imagine that! It's 22 miles of tunnels...You could even get your mail sent there too!! Hehe..

In the 1960's the caves were used as a music venue...David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and even Jimi Hendrix performed there..Below, I took a picture of the stage..it's quite small..but the sound must of been awesome flowing thru the tunnels..

In October of 1974 Led Zepplin had a media party there to launch their new Swan Song label...Now, more recently some of the tunnels are used for a live action role playing game called 'Labyrinthe'...

When you go to the caves you enter thru a gift shop where you purchase your ticket..the tours are every hour and last about 45 minutes...you are given a parafin lamp to hold in order to see..lol..and at one point in the tour the guide wants to show us what really true darkness is..the total absense of light..so he leaves his flashlight with us and takes the lamps away...then he comes back and turns off the flashlight...omg..it was the first time i ever truely experienced total darkness..that was the most interesting part really...too bad Jimi's not playing there anymore..