A couple living in a quiet Norfolk village were stunned when they found two secret tunnels hidden in their cellar.
Charlotte Wheeler and her husband Edward were made aware of the passageways at their home in Edgefield, near Holt, when an elderly man knocked on their door about two weeks ago and told them he used to play in the cellar as a child.
The man told them there was one tunnel which only led to the end of the garden, but the other tunnel headed to the coast, with strong rumours it was once used by smugglers.
Upon hearing of the tunnels, Mrs Wheeler and her husband headed into the depths of their home with a drill in an attempt to push out a brick and reveal the secret routes.
She said: "It was funny, we decided not to knock a brick out as we didn't want to damage anything, we've got loads of work going on in the house.
"But you can easily see the entrance and exit and where the tunnel is.
"I'm so interested in it I just want to know more about what they are.
"We were told one goes to the bottom of the garden, which you can see, and one supposedly goes out to the coast and the Edgefield beacon."
There are rumours the longer tunnel stretches all the way from the village to Cley.
A recent post on the Norfolk History, Tales and Myths Facebook page, which sees history buffs come together to discover more about the hidden history of the county, suggested the tunnel ran for several miles.
The post said there were even reports of the tunnel being haunted, with those entering the former White Horse Inn in the village hearing noises from below.
In 1986, an entry was even made in the national archives about the passageways.
It read: "This used to be a smuggling area, being only a few miles from the coast.
"Legend has it that the rector was on the side of the smugglers, and brandy for the parson was left in hollow stones in the rectory gateposts.
"We are told that there was an underground passage from there to the coast at Cley and that if you put your ear to the ground, you may hear the smugglers singing."
Do you know anything about the secret tunnels in Edgefield? Email casey.cooper-fiske@archant.co.uk
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