Under Holy Trinity Church

A Memory of Margate.

The Margate cliffs were chalk. An extremely tall church named The Holy Trinity Church sat in the middle of Trinity Square about 800m from the sea. During the war, the roof had collapsed leaving the outer walls, tower and spire still standing. Over the years, the roof rubble had been removed from inside leaving the floor intact, the font, marble and tiled floor still in good order. Tony knew the ruin and took Laurie and I up the tower. The stairs were rickety and completely unsafe, but the view was fantastic. He climbed out of the tower and edged his way along the top of the unsupported walls, about 20m above the ground, looking for newly hatched pigeons. He did the same trick on other days until he managed to get some to raise as pets.
When the roof fell during the war, the toppling stonework had uncovered an entrance to a tunnel beside the nave and a side entrance. Someone in authority, probably the local council had bricked up the entrance and temporarily covered it with rocks and undergrowth. Tony and his mates, fooling around in the church grounds had discovered the concealed bricked up passage entrance that went down underneath the church. Armed with candles and matches he tool us down. The brick-work was recent and enough bricks had been removed to allow access, so we all squeezed through. The passage spiralled down quite steeply . . man it was frightening . . smoke blackened recesses had been cut into the solid chalk to hold lamps or candles. We eventually arrived in a massive cavern that had been hollowed out beneath the church, it must have been 20 to 30m underground. The white walls of chalk reflected the meagre glow from the candles but it was still creepy. Tony snuffed out the candles and we could see a small area of outside-light high up in the roof of the main cavern, we tried many times to find that hole outside, but were never able to get a bearing. Relighting the candles we continued exploring and found that the chalk floor of the cavern was completely even.
Tony said he'd heard that casks of brandy and rum were smuggled over from France. The ships came in close to the rocky Margate shoreline at night and unloaded the goodies into little row boats. The smugglers rowed to the entrance tunnel at the bottom of the cliffs and then carried the casks, one under each arm through the tunnel and stored them in this big cave. Later they put them onto pack horses and carts to take to local inns and some went on as far as London. Exploring one tunnel we found a big wide shaft in the floor. The candles wouldn't illuminate the bottom and stones tossed down seemed to take forever to land. No wonder the entrance had been blocked up, it was dangerous down there!
'That bottomless pit was to stop the Customs Men and soldiers chasing the smugglers,' Tony reckoned. 'The smugglers used to pull the walkboards away if they were chased and everyone fell down the hole.' He was 5 years older than me and he knew everything.
In the gloom, the flickering candles barely illuminated the far side of the cavern but a patch of colour began to appear as we gingerly walked around. On either side of one of the main tunnels that led from the cavern were 3m high coloured paintings . . one, a pirate in sailcloth pants and striped shirt with a cutlass and eye-patch and the other, a uniformed red-coated soldier with a rifle, tall black hat and white crossed belts across his chest . . it was scary. The atmosphere was cold and damp and bloody spooky. I was not a happy chappie, expecting any minute to be struck down by a bunch of angry cut-throats. Their presence could be felt in the high chalk walls, wouldn't have been surprised to hear a 'Oo Aarrh, Jim lad, come ee 'ere me bucko, Oo Aarrh'. . Mind if I had, I would've dropped dead on the spot. The others seemed quite happy to carry on . . so I had to . . or be known as a wimp for the rest of my life. Everywhere there were recesses in the chalk walls and smoke-blackened streaks from oil lamps.
Tony went back on other occasions with his mates and torches, so did Roge and Laurie. They wanted to find cutlasses and old guns and things but all they found was a little bit of candle and a box of matches. One tunnel led toward the vicarage and two headed out toward the cliffs and sea. All the tunnel exits had been blocked up. In later years I examined the cliffs from the outside. Some wartime excavation had been made into the cliff face for gun emplacements and those tunnels may have been behind it. The church no longer exists, it was demolished and presumably the cavern and tunnels filled in. Over the years I’ve often wondered what went on under that church. Maybe it was pirates and smugglers . . couldn't see why the vicar needed a tunnel to his place unless he was in cahoots with the smugglers. But probably like other vicars around the Kent coast it was a lucrative pastime. It was an exciting experience and now seems unreal.
Interested to know if anyone else saw those tunnels and paintings.


Added 14 June 2011

#232482

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