Giant sinkhole unearths forgotten cave mystery

When a giant sinkhole swallowed up part of a road in Surrey it caused homes to be evacuated and left some residents "terrified".

But the hole in Godstone has also led many to question whether stories of a mysterious labyrinth of disused caves and quarries beneath the surface are to blame.

Peter Burgess, of the Wealden Cave and Mining Society, is an expert on the underground caves and crevices in and around Godstone.

He has been advising Surrey County Council on the risks posed by these long-forgotten caverns.

"The problem with the caves is they were all dug well before the days when such things had to be properly recorded," Mr Burgess said.

"So once they were closed and abandoned, memories went and people forgot where they were – and that's why they cause a problem today.

"Because when they manifest themselves, people know they're around, but they don't know where they're going to pop up next."

"The caves in Godstone were dug for a very high-quality sand, it's called silver sand. It was dug for a variety of purposes – glassmaking, a lot of it went into horticulture and gardening, especially in the Victorian times," he said.

"Most of the underground workings closed by about 1900, and then the industry moved on to open casting, big open pits, which we can still see today."

"There's a scattering of caves throughout the village, or there have been, the issue being of course we don't know how many because they'd been long forgotten," he said.

"Sometimes you can see where the entrances are on old maps, but by and large it's just local memory that you have to rely on – or maybe a hole will appear in someone's garden and they'll want to have a look and you'll know there's one there.

"They're all long-abandoned and sealed up, and supposedly filled in where people know about them. That isn't necessarily always the case, as we can see.

"But most of the caves in Godstone have long gone. Reigate's different, they've all been preserved.

"If people want to see them, come to Reigate because they're open to the public on certain days of the year."

"It's possible," he said. "We're not experts in what causes such things. That's down to the geologists and ground engineers.

"We're seen as a source of information on locations and where places might be should there be any other locations at risk. Sadly, in the village here, there's very little on record.

"Most of the sites are either unsurveyed or lost or collapsed or filled in."

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