Reconsidering Royston Cave:

Beyond the Templars and

Freemasonry
Carole M. Cusack
University of Sydney
Royston Cave, Her/ordshire
• Royston, a town of approximately 15 thousand in north Her9ordshire, is located
at the intersec;on of two ancient roads, the Icknield Way and Ermine Street. In
August 1742 an ar;ficial cave was discovered; two months later an;quarian
William Stukeley visited and recorded the imagery of the Cave, and in 1852
Joseph Beldam published a more detailed account of the site.
• “Royston is a seQlement first recorded in 1163-84 as Crux Roys; the earliest
recorded use of the present form of the name dates from 1286, when it was
wriQen Roiston (Gover et al. 1938, 162). The parish church of St John the Bap;st
is the oldest surviving building in the town and parts of it date from the
thirteenth century. Other notable sites and finds include the site of a medieval
hospital in Baldock Street, the site of a medieval cemetery in Briary Lane, a
seventeenth century royal hun;ng lodge in Kneesworth Street and Royston Cave,
an ar;ficial cavern decorated with numerous carvings, da;ng to the medieval
period. The Cave is a Scheduled Ancient Monument” (Fitzpatrick-MaQhew and
O’Neill, 2012, p. 2)
Description of Royston Cave
• “Royston Cave, likely to have been decorated between
the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, is said to be a
site unique in Britain and probably in the world
(Beamon 1992, 246). It lies around 70 m north-west of
Fish Hill Square. It consists of an artificial
subterranean chamber carved from the chalk bedrock
and decorated with engraved figures and unusual
symbols of late medieval style (Beamon 1992, 1;
Ashworth 1998a, 9; Figure 8). The cave was
discovered by accident in 1742 and the only finds
recorded from its initial excavation included a human
skull, some decayed bones, a small slipware drinking
cup and a piece of plain brass (Beamon 1992, 10-2). A
pipeclay seal found a little later is of dubious
relevance to the date of the monument, as pipeclay
was not used in Britain for the production of fired clay
objects between the end of the Roman period and the
later sixteenth century. Scrapings of the wall have
been analysed and found to contain traces of pigment
on the carvings, confirming early reports that they
were once coloured (Ashworth 1998a, 8)” (Fitzpatrick-
Matthews and O’Neill, 2012, p. 12).
Antiquarians and Royston Cave
• Two interes+ng features of Royston Cave are the carved
figures and scenes that decorate the walls (some
iden+fiable as saints, others difficult to classify and a
source of controversy) and the octagonal ledge that
may have been constructed for users to kneel upon in
order to contemplate the images.
• Records of Royston are scarce un+l the High Middle
Ages. AEer the discovery in 1742, William Stukeley
argued the carvings were made by Lady Roisia, the
purported foundress of the town (first the site of
Roisia’s Cross and later Roisia’s Town). He thought she
used the Cave as a chapel, and was buried there.
• An+quarians Joseph Beldam (1796-1866) and Edmund
Brook Nunn (1833-1904) lived in Royston. The original
entrance was sealed and a new entrance made by a
local man, Thomas Watson. He lived opposite the Cave
and dug a 22m tunnel from his house to the Cave and
charged sixpence for each visit.
Royston Cave in the Twentieth Century
• Since 1923 Royston Cave has been managed by English Heritage and in
1973 an archaeological investigation took place. Local historians Sylvia P.
Beamon and P. T. Houldcroft have studied the Cave over decades and
Beamon promotes it as a site used by the Templars before and after their
condemnation and the burning of Grand Master Jacques de Molay (1243-
1314), whereas Houldcroft emphasises connections with Freemasonry.
• Archaeologists have studied the Cave principally from the point of view of
geology (the stone is soft chalk), and the conservation and preservation of
the carvings. Rosicrucians, and other “usual suspects” from the Western
Esoteric tradition (and popular conspiracy theories) are often called upon
to explain unusual phenomena, and the Cave is said to be located on the St
Michael ley line and has been used by New Agers and Modern Pagans.
Sylvia Beamon: Royston, A Templar Site?
• Historically verified links between the
Templars and Royston exist, as nearby
Baldock was the site of a Templar church
and monas>c complex. Beamon sees the
Cave as being used in two ways; the lower
area as a chapel and the upper as a cool
storage room for produce the Templars
would sell at the market in Royston.
• There is much interes>ng compara>ve
evidence (subterranean chapels in the
Holy Land, similar iconographical
schemes, and so on) that can be adduced
to support this interpreta>on, but there
are limita>ons to accep>ng the defini>on
of Royston Cave as a Templar site.
• The Templar interpreta>on depends on
the carvings being thirteenth century.
Peter T. Houldcroft: Royston and Freemasonry
• Houldcroft was superintendant of the
Cave for approximately twenty years.
He asserts the carvings contained
Masonic symbols that could link the
cave to James I, who was himself a
Freemason, and had a hunting lodge
at Royston.
• The area known as ‘the grave’ he
identifies as relevant to initiatory
ritual of new Freemasons. The virtue
of the ‘Masonic’ theory is that it is
closer to the latest dating of the
carvings (on costume history grounds)
to the fifteenth or sixteenth century.
Material Religion, Conspiracism & Other New Lenses

• Royston Cave can be profitably

re-evaluated as an example of
religious material culture, and as
part of a conspiracist narra;ve
familiar to many from Dan
Brown’s The Da Vinci Code
(2003).
• My research uses both these
frames to conduct a recep;on
history of how the Cave has
been used and interpreted since
its re-discovery in 1742.
Disenchanted Interpretations of Royston Cave
• “Quarrying for the construction of the Priory late in
the twelfth century would provide a plausible
context for the creation of the cave. Documentary
evidence shows that there was a hermitage in the
town c. 1506, which was purchased by the lord of
the manor, Robert Chester, in 1540; if the
Augustinian canons had indeed created the cave as
a quarry, they may well have continued to use it,
adapting it late in the fifteenth century for use as
an anchorite’s cell. The function of the cave
remains unclear and, although new suggestions
are often made, it is unlikely that a definitive
answer will be found” (Fitzpatrick-Matthews and
O’Neill, 2012, p. 13).
• After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the
anchorite would have been dispossessed; it is
possible the Cave was then used as a prison or
oubliette. Now it attracts tourists in large numbers
and has a similar appeal to that of Temple Church
in London and Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh for
the conspiracist and alternative spiritualty milieu.
Bibliography
• Beamon, S. P. (1998) Exploring Royston Cave (Royston: Royston and District Local Historical Society).
• Beamon, S. P. (1992) The Royston Cave: Used by Saints or Sinners? (Baldock: Cortney PublicaCons).
• Beamon, S. P. and L. G. Donel (1978) “An InvesCgaCon of Royston Cave.” Proceedings of the Cambridge AnCquarian Society, LXVIII, 47-58.
• Beldam, J. (2013 [1884]) The Origin and Use of Royston Cave, 3rd ed. (New Delhi: Isha Books).
• Carp, R. M. (2011) “Material Culture.” In M. Stausberg and S. Engler (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion (London and New York:
Routledge), 474-490.
• Curteis, T. and N. Luxford (2014) “Royston Cave: An HolisCc Approach to ConservaCon.” Journal of Architectural ConservaDon, 20:3, 170-183.
• Fitzpatrick-Machews, K. J. and S. U. O’Neill (2012) ObservaDon of Works at Fish Hill Square, Royston, HerIordshire, 2011 (North Herhordshire District Council Museum Service
Archaeological Report 37).
• Harris, C. (2012) “Royston Discovering a Medieval Mystery.” Local History Magazine, 141 (Sept-Oct). 23-26.
• Houldcroj, P. T. (1999 [1998]) A Pictorial Guide to Royston Cave (Royston: Royston and District Local Historical Society).
• Houldcroj, P. T. (2008) A Medieval Mystery at the Crossroads (Royston: Royston and District Local Historical Society).
• Lethbridge, T. C. (1956) “The Wandlebury Giants.” Folklore, 67:4, 193-203.
• Local History Series (2018 [1999]) Guide to the Royston Cave (Royston: Royston and District Local Historical Society).
• Royston and District Local History Society (2013) Royston Cave: A Mystery Beneath the Streets (Film Infinity).
• Spurrell, F. C. J. (1882) “Deneholes, and ArCficial Caves with VerCcal Entrances.” Archaeological Journal, 39:1, 1-22.
• Stewart Macalister, R. A. (1899) “The Rock-Cumngs of Tell Zakarîya.” PalesDne ExploraDon Quarterly, 31:1, 25-36.
• Stukeley, W. (1795) Palaeographia Britannica: Or Discourses on AnDquiDes in Britain. In which is given a parDcular account of Lady Roisia (foundress of Royston) and her family:
with a descripDon of her cave there, discovered in 1742 (Cambridge: F. Hodson).