Life In The Ice Age
Find deeper meaning in the connection between our shared deep past and your own experiences.
This tour takes you into the two main chambers of our largest cave, Robin Hood Cave. Hear how archaeologists pieced together the fragments from this fascinating time to discover the lives of the Ice Age people and animals that visited the caves many thousands of years before you.
About Booking
The maximum number of people admitted on the Life In The Ice Age Cave Tour is 24. Children must be 5 years or older to go in the caves, and children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. We are still encouraging face coverings to be worn in the cave and visitor centre (unless exempt). Tour Terms & Conditions apply.
Public: £14 per adult, £10 per child (Minimum number of people for a cave tour to run is 2)
Private Tours can be arranged by request. Please email
Witch Marks
Immerse yourself in the adventure of ancient caves. Then refresh and rejuvenate in the light of our meadow, lake and gorge.
This tour takes you into the upper chamber of Robin Hood Cave, where huge numbers of historic protective symbols ("witch marks") were discovered in 2018. Hear tales of superstition and fear and how the residents of early modern Creswell responded to the caves on their doorstep.
About Booking
The maximum number of people admitted on the Witch Mark Tour is 10. Children must be 5 years or older to go in the caves, and children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. We are still encouraging face coverings to be worn in the cave and visitor centre (unless exempt). Tour Terms & Conditions apply.
Public: £14 per person, £10 per child (Minimum number of people for a cave tour to run is 2)
Private Tours can be arranged by request. Please email
Art In The Ice Age
Delve into Church Hole where engravings over 12,000 years old were discovered in 2003.
Hear how the art was found, see the best of the ancient engravings, and learn how these images fit into the tapestry of Ice Age art found in caves across Europe.
About Booking
The maximum number of people admitted on this tour is 10.
Children must be 5 years or older to go in the caves, and children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. We are still encouraging face coverings to be worn in the cave and visitor centre (unless exempt). Tour Terms & Conditions apply.
Public: £14 per person, £10 per child (Minimum number of people for a cave tour to run is 2)
Private Tours can be arranged by request. Please email
Robin Hood Cave
Legend has it that Robin Hood Cave provided a hide out for the famous outlaw to evade capture by the Nottinghamshire authorities. However, as with many Robin Hood tales, it is likely that fiction far outweighs the facts. One thing we can be sure of however is that it seemed to provide a popular home for people during the Ice Age.
The Neanderthals arrived first, occupying Robin Hood Cave until around 40,000 years ago. They made hand axes and scrapers from flint, quartzite and clay-ironstone to help them survive on the Ice Age grasslands. Homo sapiens came later and used the cave from around 22,000 years ago until the end of the Ice Age and beyond. They left a wide range of tools and butchered animal bone, as well as an image of a horse’s head that had been intricately engraved on a piece of horse rib bone. You can see this rare find for yourself in our museum!
Church Hole
Church Hole is a world-famous cave, containing examples of the oldest verified cave art in the UK. This includes images of bison, reindeer and birds, as well as some abstract symbols which may have had religious meaning.
As well as these artistic and religious activities, it appears that Church Hole was also inhabited at some stages. Archaeologists have discovered quartzite and flint tools which they believe belonged to Neanderthals, and flint, antler and bone tools used by modern humans during the last Ice Age.
Pin Hole
Excavations of Pin Hole found two examples of engraved bones which represent some of the earliest ‘Art Mobilier’ (portable art) from the UK, roughly 12,500 years old. ‘Pin Hole Man’ is a bone which features a profile of a man or beast stood on two legs. A rib-bone with a cross-hatched design has also been found. This may have been some form of symbol, language or counting, or it may simply have been a doodle; we’ll never know for sure.
Mother Grundy’s Parlour
In the mid 19th Century, a woman from Creswell village dreamt that there was treasure to be found in Mother Grundy’s Parlour. Her husband decided to see if this was true and conducted the first excavation of the cave. We do not know the results of this excavation but believe that a hippopotamus tooth was discovered and sold soon afterwards. Treasure of sorts.
Since then at least 6 teams of archaeologists have excavated inside the cave and within the scree deposits and spoil outside. An interesting find is the collection of fractured horse teeth which show that Ice Age hunter-gatherers were butchering horses at this site 12,000 years ago.
Boat House Cave
In the 19th Century the Duke of Portland created the picturesque lake which separates the crags. Originally conceived as a boating lake it was formed when the stream was dammed.
A channel was dug to flood this cave and create a boat house for the Duke to moor his boat. Concrete was used to create a watertight foundation. When the archaeologist Leslie Armstrong tried to excavate the cave later, he was forced to use explosives to penetrate the concreted surface to the cave floor below!
The Arch
A small area of The Arch was excavated in 1974 but no evidence was found of any humans. However, the cave was home to bear, spotted hyaena, woolly rhinoceroses, reindeer and bovids.
A reindeer leg bone with cut marks on it was also found in either The Arch or nearby Cave 7 or Cave 8. The archaeologists are undecided as to whether these could have been made by humans or Neanderthals.