For generations in Bloxham, a north Oxfordshire village on the edge of the Cotswolds, tales of hidden tunnels lingered in the background—shared, doubted, and largely ignored. Now, what once sounded like folklore is beginning to look like fact.
A group of residents, led by Dave Green, has spent the past two years searching for evidence of what many had long assumed was just local folklore. Instead, they have uncovered sections of an underground network running beneath the north Oxfordshire village.
The effort began in 2024, when a discussion on Facebook drew together dozens of accounts from locals comparing what they had heard growing up. That exchange led to the formation of the Bloxham Underground Tunnel Society.
Green said the stories had always been there, but rarely followed up.
“People talk about these things, but unless someone goes looking, nothing comes of it,” he said. “Over time, the people who remember the details are gone, and the stories fade with them.”
The group’s first breakthrough came from a tip passed on by a resident who remembered finding a tunnel entrance as a child. After locating the spot, they brought in experienced cavers to check whether it was safe to enter.
What they found confirmed that at least part of the village’s underground past had been hiding in plain sight.
“It was a strange moment,” Green said. “You go from hearing about something your whole life to actually standing inside it.”
Since then, the group has continued to track down other possible locations. Some leads have come from historical references, others from conversations with villagers. Not all have turned into discoveries, but enough have to keep the search going.
The most recent find came about differently.
In March, a builder working on the foundations for a garage broke through into open space when the ground gave way beneath him. What appeared was a large underground tunnel. The society was called in to take a look.
Green said the scale of this latest section suggests it may not be an isolated feature.
“It’s bigger than anything we’d seen before,” he said. “It raises the possibility that these passages are connected.”
Inside, there are signs that the tunnels have been there for a long time. Among the items recovered were animal bones, including a red deer skull. Red deer have not been common in the area for centuries, pointing to an early origin.
“It suggests considerable age,” Green said, adding that carbon dating could help narrow it down, though arranging that is not straightforward.
There are also markings carved into some of the stone, though their meaning is not yet clear.
As for why the tunnels were built, there is no single answer. One idea is that they date back to the Roman period. Another is that they were used later, during the upheaval of the 16th century, when Catholic clergy went into hiding during the reign of Henry VIII.
At this stage, the society is cautious about drawing firm conclusions.
“There’s a lot we don’t know yet,” Green said. “We’re still at the stage of finding things.”
More sites have already been identified for future investigation. Some may turn out to be nothing. Others, the group believes, could reveal further sections of the network.
What has changed is the starting point. The question is no longer whether the tunnels exist, but how far they go—and who used them.
For a village used to hearing the same old stories, that shift has been enough to draw renewed attention to what lies just below the surface.
Sources : Bloxham Underground Tunnel Society
