Dead Man’s Cave when the site was excavated in 1967 by George Gwynne-Griffiths was found to have Ice Age deposits, indicating that the cave was used for shelter, or as a temporary hunting camp by early man after the ice retreated.
Although there was no evidence of permanent settlement in the cave, excavations uncovered a number of flint blades about 12,000 years old, part of the Late Upper Palaeolithic period. These may have been used for disarticulating prey, or may have been used for other tasks that involved cutting, such as piercing and whittling. Along with these artefacts, George Gwynne-Griffiths also found chips of flint suggesting that flint knapping was taking place. A few fragments of Romano-British pottery were also uncovered. All of these artefacts are now in the care of the Creswell Crags Museum and Visitor Centre near the village of Creswell on the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire border.
Dead Man’s Cave is alleged to be named after the discovery of the body of a Worksop man who had been missing for nearly six months lying on a crude mattress inside the cave. It was said to have been around 1965/66), but it is not known how long the body had been in the cave.
Hauntings
Posted on Sheffield forum the story goes: In the summer of 1993 a man named Mr Fox decided to go for a walk to the stones. They had reached one of the many rocky outcrops about half a mile into the expanse of green belt land, when Mr Fox decided to go on ahead and climb to the top of a small crag. As he was walking in between two columns of rock, he felt curiously uneasy, as though he was being watched. Undeterred, he found a foothold and began to climb the rock face. He reached the top and was Astonished to see a huge black dog, something like a Rottweiler but much larger (in fact Mr Fox noted that it was the largest dog he had ever seen), approximately ten feet away from him. The dog stood motionless and stared, growling. Mr Fox remembers feeling as though he was not witnessing an “earthly” event, and described a sudden chill coming over him.
It is said that the spirit of the homeless man has appeared to those who dare enter the cave. Voices and strange noises have been heard while within the cave. There is a general sense among some that have been here that they are not welcome to enter the cave and some have claimed that whatever or whoever lurks within it tries it best get you out.
Our investigation
Charlene lowe Kemp and Aimee Sirdifield set off to investigate the cave. We have both been here previously and had heard plently of times about what is alleged to be here.
There suppose to be a legend of a witch who lost her baby and on previous investigations it was believed that people may have died falling of the crags or committed suicide.
Myself and Aimee actually climbed the crags but when we reached the top we didn’t come across a dog.
We set our equipment up and was setting the camera up when the rempod within the cave went off. We then decided to go live and the rempod goes off a further 2 more times. We get rather excited about this because our make of rempod is not of a sensitive kind like some of the other makes of rempods. It takes alot for this device to trigger. There was water falling down at the mouth of the cave but this wasn’t within. It was a distance from the wall and really shouldn’t have gone off. We could see no wildlife in there such as bat’s etc which would have triggered it if they had flown into it.
We then conducted a spirit box session which at times seemed relevant.
The energy of the place then seemed to shift and things started to become quiet. A local was on the crags who I am naming as Mr Jiggles and it would seem he was hammering away at the crags and creating a jiggle noise so we decided to leave.
Overall, its a good location. We can not explain why our rempod triggered off three times on its own. For those who know us, know that ours is not sensitive at all. Is dead man’s cave worthy of a investigation? We would definitely say so. It would seem it is one of then places where activity comes in bursts.
To take a look at our investigation, please watch the video below:
Pictures taken by Simon Wilson