The people now conceived the notion that a great treasure was concealed here, and some workmen were employed to enlarge the passage of descent. Then with buckets and a well-kerb, they set to work to clear it, and drew up the earth and rubbish that filled the cave. When they came to the floor of the descending passage they ran a long spit downwards and found that the earth was still loose. The vast concourse of people now became troublesome, and the workmen were obliged to postpone further operations till night. After much time and labour had been expended, the cave was cleared, but no really scientific examination of it was made till 1852, when Mr. Beldam drew up a report concerning it, which he presented to the Royal Society of Antiquaries. The cave is bell-shaped, and from the floor to the top of the dome measures 25-1/2 feet. The bottom is not quite circular, but nearly so, and in diameter is from 17 feet to 17 feet 6 inches. A broad step surrounds it, 8 inches wide and 3 feet from the floor. About 8 feet above the floor a cornice runs round the walls cut in a reticulated or diamond pattern two feet wide. Almost all the space between the step and this cornice is occupied with sculpture, crucifixes, saints, martyrs, and subjects not easy to explain. Vestiges of red, blue, and yellow are visible in various places, and the relief of the figures has been assisted by a dark pigment. In various parts of the cave, above and below the cornice, are deep cavities or recesses of various forms and sizes, some of them oblong, and others oven-shaped, of much the same character as those found in the French caves. High up are two dates cut in the chalk, in Arabic numerals, that have been erroneously read 1347 and "Martin 1350 February 18," but these should be respectively 1547 and 1550, as Arabic numerals were not in use in England in the fourteenth century, and the name of Martin and the February are distinctly sixteenth century in character. The figure carving was not done by the same hand throughout. Apparently the cave was originally a shaft for burial or for rubbish, and a hole in the side and floor that Dr. Stukeley took for a grave was nothing but a continuation downwards of the ancient shaft, as is proved by what has been found in it. But in mediaeval times the puticolus was enlarged and converted into a hermitage, and a hermit is known to have occupied it till the eve of the Reformation, for in the Churchwarden's book of the parish of Bassingborne, under the date 1506, is the entry, _"Gyft of 20d. recd, off a Hermytt depting at Roiston in ys pysh"_ It is true that this entry does not absolutely fix the residence of the hermit at the cave, but it is hardly probable that there were two hermitages in so small a town.