Unbelievable! You Won't Believe What Some Female Students Found Under Their Rented House (Photos)

Posted by Samuel on Mon 16th Jan, 2017 - tori.ng

A group of female students have been left awed after making a stunning discovery of what was hidden underneath their rented apartment.

The students went down to inspect

A group of female students were left really stunned recently when they found a 200-year-old secret ‘cave’ hidden beneath the cellar of their rented terraced house in England, Metro UK reports.

They made the incredible discovery after workmen who were installing new emergency lighting left a door unlocked on the ground floor.

According to Metro UK, the students went down to explore the cellar before they found a door leading to another set of stairs which took them to the 6ft by 4ft cave below.

Experts confirmed the surprising discovery dated back to the 19th century and was probably used as a domestic cellar in the 1800s.

One of the students who found the cave said the group were spooked when they first went down the stairs at their terraced house in Sherwood, Nottingham.

Stephanie Bennett, 20, who is studying broadcast journalism at Nottingham Trent University, added: ‘It’s not a big cave, it’s about six foot by four foot. It was quite exciting but we all had to go down together because we were all afraid of what we might have found.

‘We’d like to keep it open because it’s quite cool having a cave. We don’t know what we’re going to do with it yet and we haven’t had any parties down there yet.’

The students contacted archaeologists, who said the cave was previously unknown to experts and was created around 200 years ago.

Nottingham City Council acting archaeologist Scott Lomax, who confirmed the discovery, said: ‘The cave appears to be a domestic cellar which is contemporary with the building above, so it is 19th century in date.

‘It is a good example of this type of cave. Although small in size, it is interesting in providing further details about the use of caves in the city.

‘It has rock cut thralls (benches) on all four sides which would have been used as shelves to store food and/or drink on. There is also a rock-cut recessed shelf for storage.’

Nottingham is largely built on sandstone, which is very soft and easy to excavate but safe enough to support buildings.

The city has more than 700 caves from the 18th and 19th centuries but the earliest have been dated back to as early as 1250.

The cave at the students’ house will now be recorded on an official database which is used to conduct further research.

Mr Lomax added: ‘As with many of Nottingham’s known caves you can still see the pickaxe marks from when the cave was first carved, which offers a greater connection to the past.

‘The stone on which much of Nottingham is built is so soft that it enabled these caves to be formed.

‘There are other cellar caves which are very similar to the one on Mansfield Road and they are all important parts of the city’s heritage because they help us understand the growth and development of the city and the social status of the people who lived here in the past.’