Exploring Rock Houses

Hey everyone!

This is a Patreon/Substack paid subscriber exclusive! 1, because I promise you exclusive content and 2, because I definitely shouldn’t say in public whether I got to explore these Rock Houses.

I have recently started walking as a hobby - and I fell over history as soon as I started! I now look for routes which include historical points of interest, and I am spoilt for choice. This week’s walk started at Redstone Rock Caves, a one-time hermitage with a series of rooms, carved into the cliff. I spotted these in a book which I inherited from my grandparents, ‘The River Severn A Pictorial History’ (a book I will be returning to for more ideas).

In the 16th century, Bishop Latimer of Worcester mentioned them. He was not impressed, saying that the caves could lodge 500 men but he suspected they would more likely thieves than honest men! When it was a hermitage, there was supposedly a ferry service, operated by the hermits, to take passengers over the river. Sometimes the water would be low enough for the ford below the caves to be passable, and tradition has it that Prince Arthur’s body was carried through this ford on its way to Worcester Cathedral following his death at Ludlow Castle in 1502 (I have questions about the likelihood of this).

Back to the caves. Following the dissolution of all religious institutions, the caves were used for a variety of other purposes including a school, an alehouse and dwellings. By the late 1800s the caves had been abandoned and were not considered suitable for any human use.