[NT] Kinver Edge. Rock Houses (34). Oct 2023

National Trust. Kinver Edge and the Holy Austin Rock Houses. A truly fascinating place to visit and to learn about it's place in history. Kinver, Stourbridge, Dudley in the West Midlands.

 

On Kinver Edge there are several rock houses that have been carved out of the soft red sandstone. The Holy Austin rock houses were inhabited until the 1960s. The most famous are the homes at Holy Austin Rock, now restored and open to visitors. There are stoves, furniture, windows and doors – all set into the sandstone, just as they were when the houses were lived in. They are also known as Martindale Caves. The house that has been renovated represents life in the 1930s.

 

Up to 11 families lived in the cave homes. Three levels of homes were constructed in the rock. Each had a bedroom and living area. After the last two families moved out in the 1950s the buildings fell into disrepair.

 

These cave people led comparatively comfortable lives, away from society and surrounded by nature: their water came from the deepest private well in Britain and the easy-to-carve sandstone made house renovations simple. It’s thought that Kinver Edge’s first inhabitants stumbled on it in the early 17th century, though official records date from 1777. “We believe quarry workers arrived in the early 1600s and were the first people to excavate,”

 

Nanny’s Rock and Vale’s Rock aren’t restored but they can be seen from the Rock Houses walking trail. You can climb into Nanny’s Rock, peer through the remains of the windows and wander around the five empty rooms. Was Nanny a herbalist, a potion maker, a white witch? Passed down through time, there is no explanation for this curious name.

 

The National Trust was given 198 acres of Kinver Edge in 1917 in memory of Thomas Grosvenor Lee, a Birmingham solicitor born in Kinver. The National Trust care for close to 600 acres of this special landscape.

 

Only one of the cave houses in the study area is a listed building, Vales Rock, Wolverley, Grade II, and only one is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, the restored National Trust caves at Holy Austin Rock, Kinver.

 

Rock-cut Dwellings on Kinver Edge.

The group of cave houses and rock cut dwellings discussed here fit into a small geographical area and all lie on or within a couple of miles of a massive sandstone escarpment called Kinver Edge. This cuts through the county boundaries of Staffordshire and Worcestershire and the parish boundaries of Kinver, Staffordshire and Wolverley and Cookley, Worcestershire.

 

Album: National Trust & English Heritage

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