Maidenstone Hill
A footpath connects Winforton Street and Maidenstone Hill in Greenwich. I tried to take a photo of it this evening but managed to choose an aperture setting that meant the shutter had to stay open for way too long. This is the result. Quite fitting maybe seeing as Jack Cade’s Cavern is reportedly nearby.
According to Ed Gilnert in his London Compendium (Penguin, 2003), a cavern was discovered in 1780, part of the network of caves under the streets around here. When it was discovered, steps were constructed down into it and tours took place by guides “armed with suitably demonic stories”. It was closed down in 1853 after the lights went out one night. There were attempts to reopen it in the 1930s to use it as a potential air raid shelter (as with Chislehurst caves) but no-one could find the entrance. This led to a shaft being sunk in Maidenstone Hill:
There, a passage was found graffiti’d with names of visitors from the eighteenth century and carvings of the devil … plans to use the cave were abandoned due to concerns about safety, and they have remained unused ever since. (Ed Glinert, A London Compendium, p.392)
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