The Secret Tunnels
When Oxton-On-The-Wold's Normanston Castle was first built in the 1860's there was already a network of old underground chambers and tunnels in this area.
Many myths and legends have surrounded these tunnels through the centuries.
It is believed they were excavated and extended from a network of natural caves and caverns forged from an elaborate system of wells and springs running down to the Mersey. In Medieval times these were the secret routes and passages of smugglers who had spoken of many strange sightings and run-ins with at least one "terrifying creature resembling a dragon" deep in the darkest catacombs.
One or two more modern accounts have also described encounters with "large unknown creatures", but as direct access to the deeper underground tunnels became impenetrable a good number of years ago, this remains an officially unsolved mystery.
What was described as "the thigh bone of a creature of at least thirty foot in length" was unearthed in the tunnels in the 1840's and taken to London for examination in 1850, but no record of it thereafter is known to exist. It is possible it would have ended up as just one of the many fossilised curios of "Terrible Lizards" coming to light at this time and now likely resides in amongst one of the many dinosaur fossil collections in this country.
Both Dan and April have been working on ways to explore deeper into the tunnels - Dan with ongoing modifications to his Underground Mole Machine and April with her continuing experimentation and development in her magic arts.