--- title: "What Sits Behind the Front Door of a Crevillent Cave House" description: "A cave house has one built wall and rooms dug into the hill behind it. What that means for the front door, the lock in it and how a locksmith opens it." url: "https://locksmithcrevillente.es/blog/behind-the-front-door-of-a-cave-house/" business: "Locksmith Crevillente" --- # What sits behind the front door of a Crevillent cave house A cave house in Crevillent has one built wall and rooms dug into the hill behind it. What that means for its door, the lock in it and how a locksmith gets it open. 7 October 2026 · 5 min read From the street, many cave houses in Crevillent look like ordinary small houses: a whitewashed front, a window or two, a door. The difference starts a step inside. Behind that front, the rooms are not built but dug, cut back into the slope of the ravine. ## How the caves came about The caves are a solution to a crowded town. After the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609, Crevillent fell from about 1,800 people to 800. During the 18th century it grew again, to around 8,100 by 1794, and the small old core could not hold them. People started digging homes into the sides of the ravines around the town. The numbers grew for two centuries: about 500 caves at the end of the 18th century, 1,056 in 1887, and still some 900 in the 1960s and 70s, close to a third of every home in the town. They ring the upper part of Crevillent on the north and much of the east and west, over some 365,000 square metres. An architectural study of the caves (López Davó, 2016) sorts them into four building types and picks out two things that set them apart from caves in other towns: **skylights** cut up through the hill to bring light into the back rooms, and **weaving rooms**, a reminder that the carpet trade was worked in homes before it moved into factories. ## The front door is the built part For a locksmith, the useful fact is simple: the door of a cave house hangs in the one part of the house that was built, the front wall. So the door itself behaves like any other door. It can be opened through its latch or its cylinder, without damage, in the same way as a door in the [ensanche](https://locksmithcrevillente.es/lock-change-crevillente/) or anywhere else. What varies from cave to cave is everything around the door: - **The lock.** Old houses keep old locks for a long time. You may find a mortice lock worked by a big key, a rim lock screwed to the inside of the door, or a modern cylinder fitted later. Each is opened, repaired or replaced in its own way. - **The frame.** The front wall of a cave may be thick, and the frame set deep in it. That decides which new locks fit without rebuilding anything. - **The street.** Some of the cave district is steep, and its street works have gone on in phases since the special plan of 1986 without being finished. The van may not get to the door. ## If you are shut out of a cave house Nothing special is needed from you beyond what helps on any call: where you are, what the door is doing, and a photo of the lock if you can take one from outside. In the Coves, add one more thing: **a pin from the door itself**, or the last point a car can reach. The locksmith will walk the rest. The methods of opening are described on the [door opening page](https://locksmithcrevillente.es/door-opening-crevillente/). ## If you are restoring one The town itself is restoring a cave next to the Parc Nou house-museum. If you are doing the same with your own, think about locks **before** the new door is ordered: its thickness, how it sits in the front wall, and whether you want a second lock decide what will fit. A safe inside a cave raises its own question about what to fix it to; that has [its own guide](https://locksmithcrevillente.es/blog/fixing-a-safe-into-a-cave-wall/). And if the lock in your cave is simply getting rough with age, the reasons are much the same as for any inland lock: [what really wears a lock down here](https://locksmithcrevillente.es/blog/no-sea-air-what-wears-an-inland-lock/). Need work on a cave house door? Opening, repairing old locks, adding a second lock, and planning locks for a restoration. [Cave house locksmith in Crevillente, for doors set into the hillside](https://locksmithcrevillente.es/cave-house-locksmith-crevillente/) Read next - [Fixing a safe into a cave wall instead of brick](https://locksmithcrevillente.es/blog/fixing-a-safe-into-a-cave-wall/) · 4 min - [No sea air here, so what wears a lock down?](https://locksmithcrevillente.es/blog/no-sea-air-what-wears-an-inland-lock/) · 5 min - [All the guides for Crevillent](https://locksmithcrevillente.es/blog/) ## Rather ring than read on? Ring, or send a photo of the lock and your location on WhatsApp. Open 24 hours · 7 days [+34 678 583 290](tel:+34678583290) [WhatsApp](https://wa.me/34678583290?text=Hi%2C%20I%20need%20a%20locksmith%20in%20Crevillente.%20Where%20I%20am%20(street%2C%20or%20the%20settlement%3A%20El%20Realengo%2C%20San%20Felipe%20Neri%2C%20Las%20Casicas%E2%80%A6)%20and%20what%20has%20happened%3A)