locality have been lost for a century, and their recovery is just being
brought about. Their situation, high over the adjoining meadow, and
their presence in the very heart of the rock that rises abrupt to the
height of 133 feet is truly romantic. The foot of the range of cliffs,
with a south aspect, was a favoured site. Here we find communities of
monks dwelling for centuries, hermits spotted about, and a great part
of the town-dwellers, tanners, dyers, and other trades where water was
largely required. A peculiarity of these houses was their fresh-water
supply. The denizens sank holes in their living apartments with steps
cut in the rock until they got down to the water level, where they had
little pools of fresh water. The system was known as _Scoop-
wells_, and must have been very ancient. Those who lived on higher
levels burrowed into the sides of sunken roads, and the track-lines of
ancient military defences. In deeds of transfer of property it was
customary to describe tenements as _below_ or _above_ ground.
Old writers have said that they doubted if the erections above ground
would fill the space excavated below ground; and to-day, when erecting
new buildings, it is necessary to drill down into the rock a yard or
more to ascertain that the foundations are not to be laid above the
crowns of hidden vaults, chapels, or unknown habitations."

Thoroton, in his history of Nottinghamshire, 1797, gives an
illustration of rock-dwellings at Sneynton, adjoining Nottingham, but
they have recently been cleared away for railway extension.

The sanitary authorities have done their best to sweep the tenants out
of the Nottingham cave habitations, but in Staffordshire at Kinver
there are still troglodytes.

Holy Austin's Rock is a mass of red sandstone, a spur of the bluff of