Chislehurst Kent hotels:

Miles of mystery and history beneath your feet, just a short way from central London. Over 20 miles of dark passageways hewn by hand from the chalk, deep beneath Chislehurst. Experienced guides take you on a 45 minute lamplit tour and tell stories of Druids, Romans and Saxons. See the tunnels which were famous as a shelter during WW2, the Caves Church, Druid Altar, Haunted Pool and much more. Tours leave hourly from 1000-1600. The presence of chalk has been important to civilisations over thousands of years, and still is to date. Mining chalk provides Lime and Flint. Lime is the basic for plaster and whitewash paint, flint was used for manufacturing tools by early man and later for building. The mining activity is difficult to date however the mines appear on a charter circa 1250 and also in local church records of 1737.
The last time the mines were known to have been worked was around the 1830's when the Saxon section was used by a flintmaker and limeburner. The local railway made the mines more accessable in 1865, and this aided its formation as a tourist attraction. The caves also became the setting for several underground concerts in the early 1900's. During the 1914 World War the mines became part of Woolwich Arsenal, used as an ammunitions depot.