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The Guardian, 4 April 2009
"The problem is that there are no historical records of
it at all," says my guide, James Robinson. "The place is a total
mystery."
Passing through a nondescript door at the side of a gift shop in
Royston, James led me down some steps and along a steeply sloping
tunnel into the cave. Dug out by hand - probably in the 13th century
(the chalk can't be carbon dated) - it's like being inside a huge
underground bell.
However, it's the astonishing array of carvings that send a shiver down
the spine: St Katherine, holding the wheel on which she was martyred;
St Lawrence grasping the gridiron on which he was allegedly burned
alive; multiple crucifixion scenes. But look closer and there's
something odd going on. Is that the Grand Master of the Knights Templar
being burned at the stake? Why does a queen have a crown hovering above
her head? And what's a brazen sheela-na-gig doing there?
Theories as to who built the chamber and why are legion. Was it a
secret chapel created by the persecuted remnant of the Knights Templar?
A clandestine meeting place for freemasons? An oubliette into which
prisoners were hurled and forgotten? Or was it dug on the orders of
James I to use on hunting trips to his nearby lodge?
All of the above? None? A combination? But then why is the cave exactly
on the point where two ley lines cross? Hmmmm"
by Dixe Wills
The Independent, 29 April 2006
"(In Royston) you will find one of the strangest sights
in Britain. Royston Cave was hacked by hand from the chalk beneath the
main
crossroads, creating a circular chamber. The medieval carvings on the
wall suggest that it was used as a 13th-century place of worship by the
Knights Templar. To find such a creation in small-town Hertfordshire is
extraordinary ... well worth visiting if you want to come up with a Da
Vinci Code-like conspiracy theory."
Extract from "The Line of Beauty by Simon Calder"
More articles:
The Guardian (April 2010)
Cambridge News (April 2010)
Cambridge News (Feb 2010)
Cambridge News (October 2010)
BBC Look East Film (July 2011)
Cambridge News New Carvings (July 2011)
Cambridge News (June 2011)
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ROYSTON CAVE