• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Souterrains (Underground Galleries / Passages / Grottos)

Sthenno

Sthenno

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Jun 26, 2002
Messages
165
I was wondering if anybody else who has spoken about legends of underground tunnels and the like has experienced the same kind of strange apathy in the local community in regards to exploring these things as I have. In my hometown in Devon there are stories of a system of underground tunnels connecting an ancient priory, an old religious establishment (now a private home) on the outskirts of the town and the mound in the town centre which is generally accepted as an old Norman fort (although some people believe it was created from the earth that was dug out to make the tunnels). What I find strange is that nobody seems to be interested in looking into these stories, despite the fact that there is reasonable evidence to say there might be something there. Records show that a 'souterrain' (underground passage) was discovered when the priory was excavated in the 1800's but nobody had the inclination to look into it further. There is a door into the mound quite plain to see, and a chamber inside, but the brief explorations made by myself as a child, and probably generations before me, were cut short by the body of a murder victim being dumped there. Kinda put us off....... Also, many older residents remember times when ventilators could clearly be seen in the sides of the mound, and also in the garden of an old cottage of the town which has since been pulled down. The most frustrating thing is that a friend of mine lives in an old house opposite the religious establishment and says there are doors in her cellar leading out to what would be solid earth if there were no tunnel there, but they've never looked into it because it would 'probably be all blocked up'. Huh???? I for one couldn't live with that mystery! Anyway do apoligise, I've rambled, it's my first post you see, and now I look at it I realise it isn't really about anything fortean......oh well.
 
Noone is intrested because, as i have noted in my own aria and with other posts on this thread, that there is a faint fraling of fear assosated with these passages.

there are tales of mysterious disapeaances, ghosts ect conected with some of these eartjhworks wich lead me to speculate (here it comes) that they are avoided because of our deeprooted fear of the dark. SWimlpe as that realy. Well meby not...

Anyone else got any ideas?
 
There are several fogous (cornish for souterain, underground passage or creep) down near me. Hardly long enough to harbour animals etc. but many people have had strange experiences down them,even when just visiting and not meditating. There is usually a hi radiation count due to the granite in their structure, Could random radiation stimulate the brain? Strong localised magnetic fields can, as shown in recent research.
 
Ancient refuge found by workmen

Workmen have unearthed 1,000 years of history on a County Down building site. They have come upon an underground stone-built tunnel in Raholp, where our ancestors might have hidden from the Vikings or from warring neighbours.

Archaeologist Ken Neill said that with chambers off from the main tunnel it was a quite complicated souterrain, and probably built by better off farmers.

The opening that led to the tunnel - which leads into the hillside - will be sealed and the passage left alone.

"It was really somewhere for you to get down and hide when your area was being attacked by your neighbours or Vikings," he said.

"You would get down into this and you would be relatively safe.


"It would be a brave man that would come down one of these after you - not knowing the plan of it and not knowing at which corner he stuck his head round you'd be waiting on the other side with an axe or whatever."

There are about 1,000 known souterrains in Northern Ireland, about 100 of which are in County Down.

They are one of Ireland's most distinctive archaeological features but very few are accessible to the public.

While the one on the building site is being closed off the Finnis souterrian, near Dromara, is open to the public.

Known locally as Binder's Cove it was found in the 18th century and consists of a main passage of around 30m in length and two straight side passages on the right hand side, each approximately 6m long.
Click to expand...

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/n ... 750366.stm

Published: 2006/02/25 12:02:27 GMT

© BBC MMVI
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Sthenno said:
I was wondering if anybody else who has spoken about legends of underground tunnels and the like has experienced the same kind of strange apathy in the local community in regards to exploring these things as I have. In my hometown in Devon there are stories of a system of underground tunnels connecting an ancient priory, an old religious establishment (now a private home) on the outskirts of the town and the mound in the town centre which is generally accepted as an old Norman fort (although some people believe it was created from the earth that was dug out to make the tunnels). What I find strange is that nobody seems to be interested in looking into these stories, despite the fact that there is reasonable evidence to say there might be something there. Records show that a 'souterrain' (underground passage) was discovered when the priory was excavated in the 1800's but nobody had the inclination to look into it further. There is a door into the mound quite plain to see, and a chamber inside, but the brief explorations made by myself as a child, and probably generations before me, were cut short by the body of a murder victim being dumped there. Kinda put us off....... Also, many older residents remember times when ventilators could clearly be seen in the sides of the mound, and also in the garden of an old cottage of the town which has since been pulled down. The most frustrating thing is that a friend of mine lives in an old house opposite the religious establishment and says there are doors in her cellar leading out to what would be solid earth if there were no tunnel there, but they've never looked into it because it would 'probably be all blocked up'. Huh???? I for one couldn't live with that mystery! Anyway do apoligise, I've rambled, it's my first post you see, and now I look at it I realise it isn't really about anything fortean......oh well.
Click to expand...


Barnstaple in North Devon if Im not mistaken, was born there I was..
 
Souterrains are generally rock-lined subterranean spaces - typically dug out as pits, then lined and covered or buried.

Souterrain (from French sous terrain, meaning "under ground") is a name given by archaeologists to a type of underground structure associated mainly with the European Atlantic Iron Age.

These structures appear to have been brought northwards from Gaul during the late Iron Age. Regional names include earth houses, fogous and Pictish houses. The term souterrain has been used as a distinct term from fogou meaning 'cave'. In Cornwall the regional name of fogou (Cornish for 'cave') is applied to souterrain structures.The design of underground structures has been shown to differ among regions; for example, in western Cornwall the design and function of the fogou appears to correlate with a larder use.
Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Souterrain
 
Souterrains are most numerous in Ireland.

As the ringforts vanished, the souterrains appeared and proliferated: a desperate innovation in defensive architecture.

They can be simple passages, sometimes roofed with suitable and convenient standing-stones or ogam-stones, or they can be complex labyrinths with defensible 'creeps' or stile-like obstacles. Thousands must have been mere underground tunnels. Several souterrains were dug into the passage-tomb at Knowth, and one can still be seen at Dowth, county Meath.
Click to expand...

SOURCE: Irish Megaliths website
http://www.irishmegaliths.org.uk/seanchlocha7.htm
 
A souterrain is an underground stone-lined tunnel typically associated with Iron Age settlements along the Atlantic fringe. Over 500 have been found in Scotland, of which around 20 are on the Isle of Skye. Souterrains, from the French sous terrain meaning "underground" were constructed by digging out a trench, lining the sides with stone, then roofing it over with more stone and reburying the whole thing. The end result was a stone-lined passage leading to a chamber.

There is more agreement about how souterrains were constructed than about what they were used for. Given the very large number of them, they obviously had some important purpose that repaid the considerable effort involved in constructing them.

It has sometimes been suggested they were refuges to be used if the settlement was under attack: though most would have been very easy for attackers to find, and therefore useless for this purpose. Likewise, there is no evidence they were used for burials or for other ritual purposes. ...
Click to expand...

SOURCE: Undiscovered Scotland website; Kilvaxter Souterrain webpage
https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/skye/kilvaxtersouterrain/index.html
 
Lasers Are Mapping Scotland’s Mysterious Iron Age Passages

IN FEBRUARY 2022, Graeme Cavers and his team of archaeologists set off in search of a mysterious underground passage called a souterrain. There are around 500 of these Iron Age structures scattered throughout the Scottish Highlands, but nobody knows what they were built for, and no one has ever discovered one intact.

“Perhaps they were for storage, such as grain in sealed pots or dairy products like cheese,” says Matt Ritchie, resident archaeologist at Forestry and Land Scotland. “Perhaps they were for security, keeping valuables safe, or slaves or hostages secure. Or perhaps they were for ceremonial purposes, for household rituals, like a medieval shrine or private chapel.”

Site surveys can help shed light on the condition and structure of souterrains, but they can take at least a week using traditional methods. Manual measurements using a device called a theodolite—difficult to use in dark, cramped tunnels—have been replaced by laser scanners, which have improved markedly in the past few decades.

After crawling into the Cracknie Souterrain through a 50-centimeter opening in the ground, Cavers was handed a gray device the size of a shoebox: a Leica BLK360 laser scanner.

Cavers set the device on a tripod in the dank 1-meter-high passage, adjusted a few settings, and pressed “scan.” It swiveled into action, firing a laser against the walls of the souterrain 10,000 times a second. Cavers and his team can now take millions of measurements in under an hour without lifting a finger—Cracknie yielded 50 million in just a few hours.

9CrackniesouterrainPOINTCLOUDcopyrightAOCArchaeologyDETAIL_RT_RGB%20(1).jpg


A laser scan of Cracknie souterrain, capturing every detail in 3D. PHOTOGRAPH: AOC ARCHAEOLOGY

Cavers would have once had to draw or photograph the souterrain from within the dark passageway, which would have challenged his perseverance without any natural light. Now he uses software—Trimble RealWorks, NUBIGON, and Blender—to produce accessible 3D multicolored “point cloud” models.

The team members can then look at the models from any angle they like and measure distances between any two objects, and they can change the colors according to variables such as height and density.

https://www.wired.com/story/laser-scanning-tunnels/

maximus otter
 
I was in the Outer Hebrides on a school trip in 1977 and spotted a souterrain site on the map when visiting one of the islands (Berneray I think). A farmer stopped his tractor for a chat and explained there wasn't much of the souterrain to see as he had tipped in a trailer-load of rubble down it years before to stop his cows falling in. Before that, the Laird had arranged a bit of a scout around the chamber and his good Lady wife had taken a few items back to the Manor, including a bone comb.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top