Smugglers Adventure is set to re-open to visitors on Saturday, February 14th. The popular West Hill attraction closed for the season over the winter months.
Smugglers Adventure charts the thrilling history of smugglers, bootleggers and warring bloodthirsty gangs.
Visitors can explore the labyrinth of secret tunnels and passages and discover the dangers and hardships faced by Sussex smugglers of the eighteenth century.
More than 70 life-size characters, interactive displays, eerie lighting and sound effects and dramatic recreations bring this mysterious and often bloody world vividly to life.
With over 5,000 square metres of known caverns and passages St Clements Caves have long been linked with the illicit trade of smuggling.
They also have a rich history literally carved into them. They have been mined for sandstone, used as a military hospital by Wellington’s troops, acted as an air raid shelter during the Second World War and as a dance hall in the Fifties.
The oldest parts of the caves feature mysterious carved figures that have proved impossible to date.
In 1977, Geoffrey Davis, a part-time guide and a student of archaeology, discovered some bottles and a cut-off arm bone, probably dating from the time when the caves were used as a hospital by Wellington’s troops. The discovery was made while excavating in the area of ‘The Sacred Urn’.