For Edward Holmes, 44, renovating a medieval château in Bordeaux, France, was quite a change of scenery from his last job landscaping his father’s golf course back in the UK, where he grew up.
When his business-minded parents bought Château Lagorce for a cool million euros back in 2003, the young Englishman, then a single twenty-something, was the top man for the job. He moved to Bordeaux in 2005 and saw just how much work lay ahead. The rooves and gutters were rotting and full of holes; the plumbing and electrical were shot; there was no AC; and the stonework needed re-masoning. Had the place sat five years longer, it would have been gone.
One can just imagine what mysteries lie within its stone walls, or beneath its foundations. Having recently completed work on a wine-tasting cellar in the basement of the manor for adventurous patrons—the château was famous for its sweet white wine during the mid-1800s—Holmes became curious about the extensive network of tunnels that lay under the estate.
“What are we going to find?” he said. “That’s what kind of sparked the whole adventure.”
While exploring the woods on his property last October, he spotted a towering, chimney-like stone structure protruding from the ground—it was a subterranean ventilation shaft. Peering through a hole in the brickwork, he saw darkness below and could not make out its bottom.
So, enlisting help from two friends, Ryan Miller and Billy Petherick, they visited the shaft and lowered a flashlight and GoPro camera to see if it might lead to more hidden tunnels—and more importantly, to treasure. It was deeper than they expected; the light eventually hit ground about ten meters down. The GoPro revealed there were indeed tunnels down there, leading in two different directions. The men were not prepared to make the perilous descent that day.
Miller suggested they take another gander at the schematic to see if the caves beneath the château connected to the shaft. Gazing at the map, a promising lead presented itself: a passage extended way out to where the road approached the château where there was a dip in the topography, a valley, which Holmes posited meant there should be an entrance nearby.
Dredging back into the woods, the trio located several stout stone structures protruding from the ground at the valley, which Holmes believes were probably also for ventilation—during the summer, cooler air would flow downward, while in winter warmer air would escape from the top. Eventually, they stumbled upon a low-lying, stone lintel embedded in overgrowth, straddling a gaping cavity in the side of the embankment. Peering in, they saw it was pitch black inside with no end in sight. They were weary of entering, not knowing what lay within.
So, they reformulated their plan, went and geared up, and returned in short order—toting two large battery packs and one handheld battery, to ensure they didn’t lose their light source and wind up lost; they brought water and an electric jackhammer in case they needed to excavate. Holmes also carried an oxygen meter to ensure they didn’t suffocate. They then delved inside to explore. Holmes knew how old the tunnels were, having previously seen graffiti inside them dating as far back as 1805. Moreover, local legend held that they had been used by the French resistance when Bordeaux was occupied by the Germans during the Second World War.
“The resistance could whip into the tunnels and go from occupied to unoccupied,” Holmes said. “The Germans were that scared they would not go down the caves, it’s quite logical. You don’t know the area.”
As the trio plunged deeper into the cavity, the ceiling hung so low they had to crouch, but eventually it opened up so they could stand up straight. Then, Miller spotted a long wooden box, almost the length of a man, held together with old hinges, which drew their curiosity. They would later guess what it was for. Deeper inside, they reached the end of their journey and could go no further. A wall of cemented cinder blocks barred their way. An excavation had been done on the road above relatively recently, they guessed, and workers had used dynamite to collapse the cavern before filling it in.
Exiting alive and still breathing, the trio were exhilarated. They had used a mere 1/100 of the power stored in one of their three battery packs—but better safe than sorry. They then turned to the musty old wooden box. It wasn’t locked. The hinges creaked as Miller lifted the lid. There was nothing inside except a few wooden notches. “We were pretty sure when we found it, it was some kind of arms box,” Holmes said. Rifles perhaps, Miller suggested. Holmes posited it could have contained something heavier, possibly some type of World War II-era anti-tank artillery.
Had this box belonged to the French Resistance? Had it seen battle?
Regardless, they would not learn the answer that day. Nor would they learn much from Bordeaux locals as to what happened here during the war, except that a German general once occupied Château Lagorce. “As soon as you try to talk to them about ... the war, they get very quiet, and they don’t want talk about it,“ Holmes said. ”They must have had such a hard time of it." As for the lost treasure, apparently still waiting underground, somewhere in between the two châteaus, Holmes’s next mission is to gain entrance there somehow. But that’s a story for another day.
