To celebrate its 25th anniversary this year, Smugglers Adventure is inviting visitors to try and discover its legendary lost tunnels.
Rumours and stories of secret passages linking the West Hill caves to Hastings’ old town have been around for centuries.
Now staff are asking visitors to get involved in the hunt for clues.
The ‘Tunnel Hunt’ is part of a series of special events and activities to celebrate the attraction’s anniversary.
Smugglers Adventure’s Trevor White said: “As this is our 25th anniversary we thought we’d try, once and for all, to discover if there really is any truth about the lost tunnels.
“One suggestion is that clues to the location of any secret passages may actually be hidden throughout the caves themselves so we’re inviting visitors to take a close look at all the carvings and markings to see if there are any indicators ‘hidden in plain sight’.
“At the same time we’re busily going back over our own archives to see if we can uncover anything,” he added.
The caves extend to more than 5,000 square metres (one and a quarter acres) and are on two levels – a small upper cavern and an extensive area of lower interlocking caverns.
Originally created from natural fissures in the sandstone rock, there is evidence of extensive enlargement by man.
Rumours of a secret passage used by smugglers were so strong in local folklore, that in 1880 the Borough Surveyor made an official search to try to solve the mystery.
Their most significant discovery, according to a contemporary newspaper article, was “a deep hollow sound” which occurred when they paced the floor of the Ballroom.
A local man, Edgar Wenham, then wrote to the Hastings and St Leonard Observer describing a secret passage he had actually entered around the time Joseph Golding rediscovered the caves: “About 57 years ago I was half way up a passage 3ft wide and 5ft high which ran from a trap door about 30ft inside the entrance up towards old Mr Carswell’s mills.”
The exact location of the secret passages, if they exist, remains a mystery to this day.
Smugglers Adventure, St. Clements Caves, West Hill, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 3HY. Open 10am daily. Normal admission prices apply. To find out more about the spooky Halloween activities please call 01424 422964.