Cubby holes in early 18C cellar walls - thoughts?

[Kearn]

We have an early Georgian wing attached to our timber framed cottage including cellar - and these have been bugging me since we moved in! Approximately mid-way up the walls in the cellar, there are these Gothic style recesses - 4 in total, but not on the rear wall or wall where the original external entrance is. Access to the cellar has changed over the years, looks like a horse(s)/animal was kept at one stage and the external original entrance is wider than a necessary door width. We also have filled in stairs which would lead internally to the older part of the house and also the start of Georgian stairs (brick steps with wooden surround) on the left hand side wall - but unsure if these went into the room adjacent above (later Georgian addition) or just to the outside world as when originally built the left side of the building was external.

These cubby holes have a smoothed base surface (limecrete I think) and interestingly the top courses of brick on the rear do not go all the way to the top exposing the soil behind just beneath the point of the arch.

We have thought candle lighting, although there is no noticeable blackening. Poking around behind two holes recently through the gap at the top, there appears to be numerous shards of old window glass which has made me wonder if they could have originally been glazed and maybe the cellar wasn't 100% submerged on the side walls when built which is quite possible given the slope of our garden.

Any thoughts?

PS. Apologies for images being a little wonky - sometimes this happens, from the original orientation and I cannot find the option on here to rotate??!

 

[worms]

Is there any evidence of drainage? I would think they look suitable as open ventilation holes if the space was originally used as animal accommodation (horse or house-cow), but the cellar would need to have reasonable drainage for animal use. Is it possible that the niches were originally completely open, before the ground level rose or was filled in? Possibly glazed at an intermediate stage after the cellar stopped being used for animals but before the ground level change? Are the bricks at the back simply blocking the hole, or part of an original construction?

 

[Kearn]

Last Q first (!) - the rear bricks aren't tied into the sides of the cubby holes, so almost certainly a later addition. I'm of that opinion, open, then glazed, then mostly bricked from the rear.

There certainly has been animal storage at some point in the more recent past - we still have a corner of the cellar sectioned off with a floor to ceiling wooden frame and an opening with slots for a sliding vertical panel, about 3 feet high. About the size of a small stable although the sliding barrier doesn't seem high enough for a horse!?

The floor is brick on earth / all flat with no drainage channels, so maybe it had a different usage when built in the early 1700s. The only oddity on the ground, is a small area of curved limecrete ( inside the 'animal area') against the side wall - about 2 feet wide, and inch or two high and protrudes into the cellar by about 6 inches. This looks to be on top of the brick floor, but now I wonder if it's actually a possible gap that's been filled in...

 

[worms]

Interesting!

Could the sliding partition and corner section perhaps have been used to store some sort of bulk product, such as coal or grain, with boards removable to allow access when levels of product were running low? Might change the scenario from stable to brew house or something!