![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Insidechislehurstcaves.jpg/640px-Insidechislehurstcaves.jpg&w=640&q=50)
Chislehurst Caves
Former mine in London, England / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Chislehurst Caves?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
Chislehurst Caves are a series of intersecting man-made tunnels and caverns covering some 22 miles (35.4 km)[1] in Chislehurst in the London Borough of Bromley. From the mid-13th to early 19th centuries the "caves" were created from the mining of flint and lime-burning chalk.
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Insidechislehurstcaves.jpg/320px-Insidechislehurstcaves.jpg)
Today the caves are a tourist attraction and, although they are called caves, they are entirely man-made and were dug and used as chalk and flint mines. The earliest recorded mention of the mines and lime-burning kilns above dates from a 9th-century Saxon charter and then not again until around 1232AD; they are believed to have been last worked in the 1830s.[2]
During World War I the caves were used as an ammunition storage dump associated with the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. In the 1930s the tunnels were used for mushroom cultivation.