What words are waiting to be unearthed beneath the surface of our city?
What might the caves teach us about the deep relationship between the people of Nottingham and the natural world?
If our ancient sandstone cave walls could speak, what might they say?
Workshop on 2 May, Nottingham Caves, 10am-1pm
Archaeologist Susan Rawlings and Nottingham’s Nature Poet Laureate / Wasafiri Writer in Residence Cara Thompson held a truly unique creative writing experience in Nottingham’s historic City of Caves. In this workshop we descended into Nottingham’s caves for a combined history and poetry tour, weaving together the site’s fascinating past with creative writing exercises inspired by our surroundings, before we returned to the National Justice Museum to dig deeper into our cave-inspired creations.
Together, we uncovered the words and stories beneath the surface of our city, explored what the caves reveal about Nottingham’s long relationship with the natural world, and considered what this hidden sandstone world might still be able to teach us today.
As an archaeologist I have grown used to looking at archaeological sites, like the caves, from an analytical and object based interpretation point of view. Being part of this collaboration allowed me to share my knowledge of the caves and in turn receive a completely different way of looking at them. The experienced has encouraged me to look more creatively at the spaces, and in turn my perspective has been changed to see the caves as a living entity and not the fixed, isolated spaces they are currently experienced as. The stories of the caves are ever evolving and exploring them in a creative way is continuing that story.
– Susan Rawlings, Archeologist, Nottingham City of Caves
Project evolution
Taking inspiration from the 2026 theme of the Festival of Archaeology, ‘Archaeology and Nature’ this event explored how Nottingham’s caves reveal the ways residents have built, shaped, interacted with and were sheltered by Nottingham’s geologic worlds.
Like the festival itself, which celebrates the evolving of communities amidst archeological and ecological spaces, our project has had its own evolution. Participants excavated words out of cave etchings, samples, and the feeling of sandstone under skin and shoe. These words built and became poems and their poems were printed for visitors to read on the entrance to the cave site. We then had these poems compiled into a pamphlet, bringing a community of voices together as a collection. You can read their pamphlet below.
We hope that you, too, in reading them, become curious about how the stratas of deep and human time connect in the city below our feet and in the minds of neighbours.
Read more about the festival of archaeology here
Read our cave-inspired poetry here:
Our cave wanderers at work:
Wasafiri
Wasafiri is the UK’s leading magazine for international contemporary writing. Launched in 1984, it is now renowned for publishing some of the world’s most distinguished writers including Chinua Achebe, Kamau Brathwaite, Anita and Kiran Desai, Sam Selvon, Nadine Gordimer, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Michael Ondaatje, Vikram Seth, Nayantara Sahgal, Gillian Slovo, and Ben Okri amongst many others.
Cara Thompson is the Wasafiri Writer in Residence, read about the appointment here. The residency will run for nine months and will include a series of three online and one in-person workshops, ‘Slow Poetry: Writing Through Hibernation’, and ‘Unearthed: A Cave Poetry Experience’, which will be open to public. She will also take part in Wasafiri events, and contribute to the print magazine and Wasafiri.org.