... towards a curry, perhaps, after Charlie's underground excavation (8)
I believe the answer is:
catacomb
'underground excavation' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'towards a curry perhaps after charlie's' is the wordplay.
'towards' becomes 'at'.
'curry perhaps' becomes 'comb' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'charlie' becomes 'c' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'at'+'a'+'comb'='atacomb'
'atacomb' put after 'c' is 'CATACOMB'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for catacomb that I've seen before include "Burial-place" , "Subterranean burial place" , "underground tunnels" , "Underground cemetery with recesses for tombs" , "set of tunnels" .)