A growing breed of Briton is taking to troglodyte living – moving into Andalucía’s ancient cave houses.

Galera looks – at first glance – like any other pretty Andalucían village. Passing through the sleepy main square and on up the hill, the galleries of pristine cottages hove into view. If it weren’t for the more exotic foliage (and the lack of sea), you could be in a Cornish fishing village. But something doesn’t seem right. It takes a few seconds to register that all these ‘little boxes’ are just one room deep, and a couple more seconds to realise why: these are cave houses – hundreds of them.

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise. After all, this is the altiplano – the high plain hemmed in by three mountain ranges, and an area renowned for its cave dwellers since who knows when. It’s just that the houses of Galera seem so, well, normal. The province is, of course, familiar territory for troglodytes. The Sacromonte district of Granada city is well known for its gypsy caves – though nowadays every second dwelling seems to stage tourist-trapping flamenco tablas.
Guadix, to the north-east of Granada, is the centre of another cave-dwellers’ community; close to 10,000 people still inhabit the caves dug out of weird, wind-shaped rock on the town’s outskirts.
It’s not a place to linger, though. The local tourist board advises against visiting the cave quarter at night and suggests stashing valuables in the hotel safe before even a daytime stroll.
Further north, things are different. This is proper cave country, with holes burrowed out of every hillside and cliff as far as the eye can see.
The landscapes are broad and haunting; what seems flat at first turns out to be an unending series of gullies and mesas – all dried up, of course. It’s a harsh land, with hot summers and cold winters, and outside the few towns and villages you have to work hard to spot a dwelling.
That’s because the locals long ago retreated into the hillsides, excavating caves that range in size from bijou to cavernous. Most of the thousands of dwellings are thought to be between 100 and 500 years old, carved out of the soft yet waterproof sandstone to house families and their animals.
It was a cheap way of finding a house, and if you acquired more livestock – or children – you just dug out another room.
But there’s evidence of far older inhabitants in the area around Galera and the neighbouring village of Orce. The two communities style themselves ‘the first settlements in Europe’, based on archaeological finds a couple of decades ago.
Great excitement followed the unearthing of what was claimed to be a skull fragment from ‘Orce man’, thought to be 1.5 million years old. Doubts have since been cast on the find – it is now thought to be from a prehistoric horse – but tools dating back a million years have been found to back up local claims.
The caves were largely abandoned in favour of houses from the 1950s on, but a decade or so ago began to be renovated and modernised for rural tourism.
A couple of years later new settlers started getting the bug for permanent cave life and the foreign legions relocating to Spain turned their attentions to casas cuevas.
Britons have been at the forefront of this invasion, which has breathed new life into a half-forgotten area of Andalucía. Villages like Galera have thrived. Bars and restaurants have been spruced up, supermarkets have opened and, of course, estate agents have moved in as the foreign residents have revitalised the community.
Galera now has around 100 British families from a population of 1,400, according to the town hall. Many use their caves as holiday homes but many more live there all year in dwellings that can go back 20m or more into the hillsides.
It’s the same story in nearby Huescar, the biggest town in the region. There are cave settlements on either side of the town and Britons have bought into both.
Karen MacManus and her family moved to Spain five years ago but were ready to head back to Britain before they discovered cave life.
“We started on the coast in Murcia and kept moving further inland to get away from British influences but we were about to give up before we came to Huescar,” says Karen.
“We were smitten straight away. We bought an unreformed cave, had a builder renovate it to our design and put a pool in the front garden. And we couldn’t be happier. I’d never go back to living in a house now.”
What about modern facilities? The cold and damp?
“We have mains water, sewage and electricity and broadband internet access,” she says. “And the temperature is fine – like all caves, it’s a constant, year-round 16-19C. We have a log fire in winter and that heats the whole cave.”
The MacManus’ cave has rooms built in front that are more vulnerable to changes in temperature. But in Fuente Nueva, a hamlet near Orce, Iain Macdonald and Gayle Hartley’s front door opens out of the hillside.
They bought their cave in 2004, took their son, Joshua, and their possessions from the north-east of England and spent three months living in a caravan while they turned a hole in the cliff into a modern, two-bedroom dwelling.
“We did everything – laying cables, plumbing, raising the floor level and tiling, even putting in a fireplace,” says Iain. “It was hard but we got in before the cold of winter [temperatures on the altiplano can drop to -18C] and we feel completely settled here.
“There are maybe 20 caves in Fuente Nueva, most of them owned by foreigners and at least four by Britons,” he adds. “But the locals have been great – very welcoming. We even have the local policeman taking Joshua and two other children to and from school in Orce.”
A few yards away, Bill and Carrie McQueen are still settling into the cave they bought a few months ago. Bill was the guitarist with Newcastle-based band China Drum and is bringing his expertise to bear by building a recording studio.
“The great thing about caves is the acoustics and the sound-proofing. We could be making a hell of a racket in here and no-one would hear us,” he says.
The couple and their baby, Amelie, live in a three-bedroom cave house and are adding more accommodation for their residential recording business.
“We want people to come and try their hand at making music, or bands to come and put together demo tapes or even record albums,” says Bill. “It’s our aim for them to enjoy the peace and the sunshine and also have high standard recording facilities.”
The McQueens are typical of this new breed of cave dweller: foreigners trying something different in their thirties or forties and intent on earning a living while they benefit from the change of lifestyle.
The local councils are happy to see regeneration in their villages and towns, and welcome the extra income that flows in as a result.
And the locals are only too glad to be shot of their caves – mostly used for a few animals or long deserted. They score a cash windfall and can enjoy undreamt-of luxury in modern village houses. The newcomers change their lives, realise a dream and immerse themselves in the tranquillity of cave life.
“When we moved here people thought we were mad,” says Iain Macdonald. “But our quality of life is far better than most people’s in Britain. We’re surrounded by beautiful countryside, we breathe clean air, we eat healthily and our son is growing up in a safe, happy, sunny environment.”
And if they decide to add to the family, Iain and Gayle only have to get the pickaxe out; a couple of days’ work and there’s baby’s new nursery.
You couldn’t do that in Newcastle-upon-Tyne – or Marbella, for that matter.