Cave of a Cove

To the west of Nesscliffe Rock, Shropshire, is a cave cut in the red sandstone, the hideout of the late fifteenth-century/early sixteenth-century highwayman Humphrey Kynaston. There are two chambers, separated by a pillar carved from the live stone. Outlawed by King Henry VII in 1491, Kynaston lived in one chamber, the entrance to which is 35 feet up the cliff face, reached by stone steps; and kept his horse, Beelzebub, in the other. Into the pillar is engraved "H.K. 1594," but this cannot be by Kynaston's own hand, as he died 60 years earlier.