City of holes

Some new images of the ongoing laser-scan project taking place in the caves beneath Nottingham, England, have been released. "The Nottingham Caves Survey is in the process of recording all of Nottingham’s 450+ sandstone caves," the organizers explain.


From malting caves and circular kilns to a 19th-century underground butcher, via the Shire Hall and, of course, Mortimer's Hole, it's intoxicating to imagine a city whose most exciting discoveries lie somewhere far below its own streets and urban surfaces, in a delirious sprawl of artificially enlarged sandstone caves.




Imagine, for instance, a city consumed by its own archaeology—a hole complex of obsessive-compulsive excavation—where the streets are just the thinnest of bridges spanning a sponge-like void below.


For more, check out the site of the Nottingham Caves Survey, which has link after link after link to explore; perhaps start with their Cave Map and move onward from there.