Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe

by S. Baring-Gould

A recess at the foot of the crag, arched above, contains three perpendicular grooves. This was the beginning of another artificial cave, never completed, begun maybe in 1453 and suddenly abandoned, as the glad tidings rang through the land that the English had abandoned Aquitaine and that the Companies were disbanded.

At the Roc d'Aucor, in the valley of the Vers (Lot), a gaping cave is visible far above where any ladder could reach and inaccessible by climbing from the top of the crag, as that overhangs like a wave about to break. Nevertheless, athwart the opening are, and have been from time immemorial, two stout beams let into the rock horizontally. Dimly visible in the depth of the cavern is some tall white figure, and the peasants declare that it is that of a man—a statue in marble, keeping guard over a golden calf.

In 1894, M. Martel and three friends, taking with them Armand, the trusty help in descending avens, pot-holes, and exploring the course of subterranean rivers, resolved on an attempt at the exploration of this mysterious cavern.

The mouth is 90 feet from the ground, and its floor is about 95 feet from the summit of the cliff, [Footnote: Martel (A.), Le Réfuge du Roc d'Aucor, Brive, 1895.] which is crowned by the oppidurn of Murcens, the best preserved of all Gaulish strongholds in France, and was held by the English in 1370. The only possible way to obtain access to the interior would be from above, as the plumb-line let down from the summit fell 44 feet wide from the base of the cliff. Accordingly a rope ladder was attached to a tree on the top, and Armand descended furnished with a plumb-line, the end of which was attached to a cord. "Having descended 77 feet, he swung free in the air at the level of the transverse poles. Then he endeavoured to throw the lead-weight beyond one of the poles. He succeeded only after the seventh or eighth attempt, and was well pleased when the weight running over it swung down to our feet, as the position of the poles and the slope of the floor of the fissure did not allow it to rest in the cavern. 'Pull the cord,' shouted Armand. 'What for?' 'You will soon see. Pull'—and speedily the string drew after it one of our stout ropes. 'Now do you understand?' asked Armand. 'I have fastened my rope ladder to the cord that goes over the pole. Four or five of you pull and draw me in towards that pole, and so we shall get the better of the situation. When I have fixed the ladder to the pole you may all mount by the grand stair.'"

By good fortune that beam held firm, and first Armand got into the cave and then the others mounted from below. What made the entrance treacherous was that the floor at the orifice sloped rapidly downwards and outwards.

When within, it was seen that the posts were still solid and firmly planted in notches cut in the rock on both sides. In line with them were two rows of similar notches for the reception of beams extending inwards for about twenty feet, as though at one time there had been rafters to divide the cave into two storeys, but of such rafters none remained. The back of the cave was occupied by a gleaming white stalagmitic column that certainly from below bore some resemblance to a human figure, but the floor of the cavern was so deep in birds' nests, and droppings of bats, leaves and branches, that it was not possible at the time to explore it. This, however, was done by M. Martel in 1905, but nothing of archaeological interest was found. However, he noticed a sort of ascending chimney that extended too far to be illumined to its extremity by the magnesium wire, and he conjectured that it extended to the surface of the rock above, where was the original entrance, now choked with earth and stone.

But an investigation by M. A. Viré has solved the mystery of how access was obtained to this refuge. The beams visible from below are, as already said, two in number. The upper and largest is square, and measures seven by eight inches. The lower is nearly round and is four inches in diameter, and shows distinct traces of having been fretted by a rope having passed over it. It must have been used for the drawing up of food or other objects likely to excite the cupidity of robbers and routiers. The number of notches for beams of a floor in the sides of the cave is remarkable, but no floor can have been erected there, otherwise it would not have rotted away, whilst the two cross- beams at the entrance remain sound. The chimney supposed by Martel to communicate with the surface does not do so. Spade work at the foot of the rock revealed the manner in which the cavern had been reached. A tradition existed in the Vers valley that at one time there had been a tower at the foot of the rock, and old men remembered the removal of some of its ruins for the construction of a mill. By digging, the foundations of the tower were disclosed. It had been square and measured 44 feet on each side. It had stood about 60 feet high, and had been topped with a lean-to tiled roof resting against the uppermost beam in the cave and thereby masking it. [Footnote: "Le Roc d'Aucour," in Bulletin de la Soc. des Antiquaires de Quercy, Cahors, 1901, t. xxvi.]

A somewhat similar cave is that of Boundoulaou in the Causse de Larzac (Lozère). Although this has an opening in the face of the precipice, which is partly walled up, it can be entered from another and more accessible cave. At a considerably lower level flows a stream that at one time issued from it, but has worked its way downwards, and now gushes forth many feet below. However, apparently in times of heavy rain, the overflow did burst forth from the upper cavern, for in it were found the skeletons of a whole family that had perished on one such occasion.

At nearly 180 feet up the face of a sheer perpendicular cliff near Milau is the cave of Riou Ferrand, 45 feet below the brow of the precipice. The mouth of the grotto is partly blocked by a well- constructed wall. It has been entered from above and explored. It yields delicately fine pottery and a spindle-whorl, so that a woman must have taken refuge here, and here sat spinning and looking down from this dizzy height on the ruffians ravaging the valley below and setting fire to her house. Bones of sheep and pigs in the cave showed that it had been tenanted for some time, and tiles of distinctly Roman character indicated the period of its occupation. The only possible means of entering this cavern is, and was, by a rope or a ladder from above. [Footnote: Martel, Les Abimes, Paris, 1894.]

I was in the valley of the Célé in 1892 with my friend M. Raymond Pons, a daring explorer of avens and caves. There was one cavern in a precipice on the left bank near Brengues that showed tokens of having been a refuge, from having a pole across the entrance. M. Pons obtained a stout rope, and the assistance of half-a-dozen peasants, and was let down over the brink, and by swinging succeeded in obtaining a foothold within. He there found evident traces of former occupation. But how was it entered and left in ancient times? From below it was quite inaccessible, and from above only by the means he employed—a rope.