About
Beneath a residential corner of Margate lies a chalk cavern cut by hand, its walls covered in large, strange, brightly coloured paintings of elephants, lions, whales, biblical scenes and heraldic figures. The Margate Caves began as a chalk mine, dug in the eighteenth century to extract material for lime and building work, and were rediscovered in 1798 by a gardener working the grounds of a house above.
What happened next is what makes the site unusual.
Rather than being filled in or forgotten, the caverns were opened as a private curiosity by the property's owners, who cut steps, added a well and a supposed dungeon, and painted the chalk walls with the exotic and improbable imagery that survives today. Margate was already establishing itself as one of the earliest English seaside resorts, reachable from London by hoy and later by steamer, and the caves became part of the entertainment on offer to visitors looking for something to do beyond the beach.
They remained a paying attraction, with interruptions, for the best part of two centuries, serving among other things as an air raid shelter during the Second World War, before closing in 2004 amid concerns about access and safety.
The site sat abandoned and was very nearly lost to development. What saved it was a sustained local campaign: the Friends of Margate Caves and the Margate Caves Community Education Trust fought for reopening, raised funds, and built an entirely new visitor centre on the derelict ground above, which opened in 2019.
That building now houses a community café, a shop, exhibition space and the stairway down.
The result is a genuine rarity — a piece of Georgian and Victorian popular entertainment preserved more or less intact, in a form that would never be created today, run by a community organisation rather than a commercial operator. It is atmospheric, slightly absurd, and unlike anything else on the Kent coast.
Visitors should be clear about one thing before booking: the descent is by two flights of stairs followed by a steep, narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel, so the caverns are out of reach for wheelchair users and anyone with significant mobility problems, though the café, shop and exhibition space above ground are fully accessible.
For those who can make the descent, the moment the constricted tunnel opens into the painted chamber is a properly theatrical reveal — and one that the site's Georgian proprietors almost certainly engineered on purpose, knowing exactly what they were selling.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- The caves themselves cannot be reached by wheelchair users or anyone with significant mobility problems. Access is two flights of stairs then a steep, narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel — but the café, shop and exhibition space above ground are fully accessible.
- Last entry is 16:30, half an hour before closing. Arriving at five past four will not get you underground.
- Outside the summer holidays the site opens Wednesday to Sunday. It runs daily during the peak season, so check before making a Monday or Tuesday trip.
- The caves are cool and damp year round regardless of the weather above. Bring a layer even on a hot August day.
- Ask about the fiddle kits and ear defenders if anyone in your party would benefit. They are available on request and make a real difference in an enclosed, echoing space.
- Pair the visit with the Shell Grotto ten minutes away, Margate's other subterranean oddity, for a genuinely strange afternoon.
- Parking outside is limited to an hour. Use the Trinity Square car park a short walk away if you want longer.
- Warn claustrophobic members of your group about the entrance tunnel in advance rather than at the top of the stairs.
Highlights
The painted chalk walls
The caverns' walls carry large painted figures of elephants, lions, whales, biblical characters and heraldic beasts, executed directly onto the chalk in bold colours and at considerable scale. They were added after the caves' rediscovery in 1798 by owners turning a disused mine into a private curiosity, and they are not sophisticated art — they are the visual language of the fairground and the pleasure garden, designed to astonish paying visitors.
That is exactly why they matter: very little Georgian and Victorian popular entertainment survives in situ, and almost none of it underground.
Their strangeness is the whole point.
A hand-dug chalk mine
Before it was an attraction the site was a working chalk mine, cut by hand in the eighteenth century to supply lime for mortar, agriculture and building as Margate expanded. The pick marks are still visible across the ceilings and walls, and the irregular chambers follow the seams the miners were working rather than any designed plan.
Chalk mining of this kind underlies a great deal of Thanet and north Kent, mostly inaccessible and often forgotten until subsidence reveals it, so a set of galleries that can simply be walked into is genuinely uncommon.
The 2019 visitor centre and community campaign
The caves closed in 2004 and the site was left derelict, at real risk of being built over and lost. What reversed that was a long local campaign by the Friends of Margate Caves and the community education trust that grew out of it, which secured the site, raised the money and commissioned an entirely new building above ground.
Opened in 2019, it holds the café, shop, exhibition space and the stairway down.
The building is worth noticing in its own right as the physical result of a successful grassroots heritage rescue, of which there are fewer examples than there ought to be.
The 1798 rediscovery
The mine had been abandoned and forgotten when, in 1798, a gardener working the grounds of the house above broke through into the void beneath. The story of the accidental rediscovery is central to the site's identity and is exactly the kind of episode that appealed to the Georgian appetite for the picturesque and the mysterious.
The owners promptly cut a staircase, added features including a well and a chamber presented to visitors as a dungeon, and began charging admission — turning an industrial hole in the ground into a commercial marvel within a very few years.
Collections
The Margate Caves are a site rather than an object collection: the principal heritage asset is the hand-cut chalk cavern itself, together with the painted decoration applied to its walls after rediscovery in 1798, the cut stairway, the well and the chambers added as visitor features during its life as a commercial attraction.
The pick marks and irregular galleries record the eighteenth-century chalk mining that created the space, and physical evidence survives of its later use as a wartime air raid shelter. Above ground, the visitor centre opened in 2019 holds exhibition space interpreting the site's history, Margate's development as one of the earliest English seaside resorts, and the community campaign that rescued the caves from dereliction and possible loss after their closure in 2004.
The Painted Caverns
The chalk galleries themselves, with their eighteenth and nineteenth-century wall paintings of exotic animals, biblical and heraldic figures, the cut stairway, the well and the so-called dungeon.
Rediscovery, Rescue and Reopening
Exhibition space in the 2019 visitor centre covering the 1798 rediscovery, the caves' long life as a seaside attraction, wartime shelter use, closure in 2004 and the community campaign that reopened the site.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.