THIS week in Down Memory Lane we travel underground and explore the Deneholes, in Hangman’s Wood, Little Thurrock.

With the recent collapse of a suspected Denehole at Blackshots, I was reminded of the complex of mines to be found in the woods nearby.

I came across a story in the Grays & Tilbury Gazette of local Scouts spending 20 hours exploring the underground complex of tunnels in March 1953 for a senior Thurrock Scout adventure.

The patrol was made up of Patrol Second George Hodges, Senior Jimmy Roberts, Brian Crawley, Patrol Leader Colin Coventry, Graham Carter, John Havers, Bert Jupitus and Charlie South, while Gazette photographer Jimmy Green was sent down to take the photographs, one of which you can see here.

The Scouts found that at the bottom of the mine shaft it was 43 degrees and the air was damp, but the chalk had been excavated in to domed shaped caverns some 16ft high and 20ft in diameter.

Much time was spent exploring in between the caverns through small tunnels, requiring wriggling on stomachs to get through.

Primus stoves provided a little warmth and hot drinks, while an aerial up the vertical mine shaft provided a link with the outside world as they could listen to a radio.

Our historical interpretation of this complex of mine shafts for extracting chalk suggests they are of late medieval date, but little dating evidence in archives or artefacts have been discovered.

I think we need to dig deeper to find out more about who excavated these mines and the end use of the chalk.