[Illustration: Sketch Plan of Rock Stable, Commarques.]
Some of the grottoes served at once for man and beast and fowl. Not only are there chambers for the former, but also mangers for cattle, and silos to contain the fodder; and there are nooks for pigeons in an adjoining cave. In many cases there are cisterns; in one is a well. The cisterns had to be filled laboriously. They are provided with bungholes for the purpose of occasional cleaning out. The walls are scored with concave grooves slanting downwards, uniting and leading into small basins. The moisture condensing on the sides trickled into these runnels and supplied the basins with drinking water. The mangers have holes bored in the stone through which passed the halters. There are indications that the cattle were hauled up by means of a windlass.
That these were not places of refuge in times of danger, but were permanent habitations, would appear from the fact that those of Lamouroux contain mural paintings, and that in them, in addition to stables, there is a pigeonry. In one or two instances the piers that support the roof have sculptured capitals, of the twelfth or thirteenth century. In the cave-dwelling still tenanted at Siourat is cut the date, I.D. 1585, surmounted by a cross. [Footnote: Lalande (Ph.), Les Grottes artificielles des environs de Brive. In Mémoires de la Soc. de Spéliologie. Paris, 1897.]
I have given the plan of the caves of Lamouroux in my "Deserts of
Southern France."
How general rock habitations were at one time in Perigord may be judged by the prevalence of the place-name Cluseau, which always meant a cave that was dwelt in, with the opening walled up, window and door inserted; roffi is applied to any ordinary grotto, whether inhabited or not.
It would be quite impossible for me to give a list of the cave- dwellings in France still inhabited, or occupied till comparatively recent times, they are so numerous and are to be found in every department where is the chalk or the limestone, sandstone or volcanic tufa.
They are to be met with not only in those parts of France from which the above specimens have been taken and described, but also in Var, Bouches du Rhone, Aveyron, Gard, Lozère, Cantal, Charente, Vienne, &c.
There is a good deal of sameness in the appearance of those still inhabited—a walled face, a mask, with window and door, and above a chimney of brick rising out of the rock.
[Illustration: Plan of the Rock Holes in Nottingham Park. Total length of excavation on South Front 110 yards.]
In England, Nottingham drew its ancient British name of Tigguocobauc (House of Caves) from its troglodyte habitations; at Mansfield in that county such caves exist, and were associated with a class of inhabitants somewhat nomadic, who obtained their living by making besoms from the heather of the adjoining forest and moorland. They established a colony on the roadside waste, and sank wells in the rock for water. Nottingham enjoyed possibly the largest brewing and malting business in the country, and those trades were nearly wholly carried on in chambers and cellars and kilns cut out of the living rock. Mr. W. Stevenson, author of "Bygone Nottinghamshire," writes to me: "Last week I was with an antiquarian friend exploring an ancient passage in the castle rock, originally made as a sally-port to the castle, but at some later period when bricks came on the scene, converted or enlarged into a set of malt offices with malt kilns complete. Their original use and 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."