Amazing man-made tunnels stretch for miles beneath a stunning part of the UK
- UK Hidden Gems
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Across the UK, there are several mysterious underground tunnels and caves that go back hundreds, even thousands of years.
Hidden deep in the countryside of one of the UK’s most stunning counties is a group of ancient underground caves that continue to puzzle experts.
These mysterious underground places, called fogous (said like “foo-goos”), are found only in this part of the country, and no one really knows what they were used for.
The tunnels and caves lead off into unknown directions. They must have had an important use in the past – but exactly what that was, we still don’t know.
One of the best places to see these strange tunnels is Carn Euny, an old settlement near Sancreed, close to Penzance in Cornwall. People lived here from the Iron Age all the way through to Roman times, and one of these fogous is still there today.
The site has the remains of stone houses that date from around the second to fourth century AD. Some of the walls still stand a metre tall. But the most interesting part of the village is right in the middle – an underground stone tunnel.
Fogous – which is the Cornish word for cave – are made from buried stone walls, with the tops getting narrower, and stone slabs laid across the top.
This type of ancient tunnel is only found in the far west of Cornwall, although similar underground spaces have been found in other countries. Even though they’ve been around for centuries, we still don’t really know why they were built.
Experts think the tunnels and caves are mostly the same as they were when people first built them. Carn Euny was first found by tin miners in the early 1800s, but it wasn’t properly studied until digs were done between 1964 and 1972.
Over the years, parts of the site have been damaged by people taking stones and by farming, which makes the layout tricky to figure out. But archaeologists believe there were at least ten homes built here during different time periods, starting in the Iron Age.
Carn Euny’s fogou is one of only two fogous protected by English Heritage. The other is the biggest and best-preserved one – Halliggye Fogou, found on the Lizard peninsula.
Experts say there are only about fifteen fogous known today. Other, similar structures called souterrains can be found in places like Ireland, Scotland, and France. Halliggye Fogou is also looked after by English Heritage and is thought to date back to the fifth or fourth century BC.
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