Market Place

The sounds of digging have been heard from underground in the area of the Market Place late at night. In 1646, the town held out against Scots invaders, who hired a team of miners to tunnel into the hill on which the town stood. They then planned to emerged and take the town. However, a young boy heard the digging and thinking it was rats, alerted his father who, in turn, alerted the Royalist garrison who dug into the tunnels and threw burning straw and boiling water down, killing the majority of the miners. The tunnels were then sealed up, the bones of those who died left inside.