Nottinghams earliest inhabitants exploited this peculiar property.
Photo credit:DncnH/Flickr
None of these early caves exist today.
They have either collapsed are weathered away by erosion.
But there are still hundreds of caves under the modern city of Nottingham.
Butchers and fishmongers also built their workplaces there because of the absence of flies and the cool temperature.
Maltsters took advantage of the cool temperature of the caves to create malt from barley all throughout the year.
Entire families slept and ate in a single room.
Sanitation was poor and the caves became breeding grounds for cholera, tuberculosis and smallpox.
It was one of the worst periods in the history of Nottingham.
People were still living in them until the first quarter of the 20th century.
During the Second World War, the caves became air raid shelters.
Only a handful of the caves are in use today.
Another set of caves function as indoor rifle range of the Nottingham Rifle Club.
A section of the cave web link under the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre is now open as a tourist attraction.
