Mad Allen's Hole, a cave on the southerly Bickerton Hill, is believed by some to be the location of "Allenscomb's Cave" in which John Harris, "the English Hermit", lived for 46 years in the 18th century. According to a pamphlet of 1809, Harris was a man of property from Handley, who embraced a hermit's life when his parents refused him permission to marry the woman of his choice. He first inhabited a cave in nearby Carden Park, moving to Allenscomb's Cave in the 1760s. Recent research has, however, cast doubt on the identification of Mad Allen's Hole with Allenscomb's Cave. Unlike the cave in Carden Park, no material dating to the 18th century has been discovered at Bickerton, and the name "Mad Allen's Hole" originated in the late 19th century, when the cave was occupied by an eccentric known as Mad Allen. In the early 19th century, the Bloody Bones caves on the northerly hill were occupied by brigands, who terrorised the surrounding countryside, stealing cheese from local farms and plundering graves, as well as selling sand for cleaning. Seven were captured and executed in around 1834.