On the hobbit-y inhabited ‘hill-warrens’ near Buxton, by Ebenezer Rhodes in his book Peak Scenery (1824 reprint)…

“The lime hills beyond Buxton have a curious and delusive effect [to the eye]; they appear like an assemblage of tents, placed on a steep acclivity, in regular stages one above another […] Many of them have been excavated, and they now form the habitations of human beings. Some of them are divided into several apartments, and one aperture serves to carry off the smoke from the whole. The roofs of these humble dwellings are partially covered with turf and heath, and not infrequently a cow or an ass takes a station near the chimney, on the top of the hut, amongst tufts of fern and thistles, which together produce a very singular and sometimes a pleasing effect. One conical hill that I observed, contains within it five or six different habitations, and to the whole there appears but one or two chimneys: by what contrivance these are made to answer the common purposes of so many families, I have not been informed. When Faugas St. Fond [the fossil-hunter] visited Buxton, he was astonished to see human beings entering into and emerging from these excavations in the earth, like rabbits in a warren.

Strangers beholding these places would never imagine them the residence of creatures like themselves. When I first saw them, I knew not to what uses they were applied, for I did not then recognise them as objects I had previously met with in description, and none of their inmates appeared at the threshold to mark them out as dwellings. [It is later revealed that this was “the first day of the shooting season”, so the inhabitants were likely being extra cautious of strangers…] On a second look, they [the inhabitants] had issued from their hovels as if by general agreement, and I found the whole hill was peopled […] with boys and girls, and men and women; who having gazed for a moment upon us, suddenly disappeared, leaving us to reflect at leisure on the unusual sight.”