Extra Fireplace Flue - Basement Furnace?

[ireneadler101]

Hi all,

We have a bit of a mystery which we're trying to get to the bottom of. Our house was built in approx 1880 and is a Victorian gothic-style villa.

We have discovered an additional flue running down the right hand side of one of our ground floor fireplaces. It is very narrow - maybe a foot and a half wide - and definitely goes up through the chimney (I extracted about 5 dead birds from the bottom of it, and there's a mighty breeze from it). It seems to have been filled with rubble at some point - I have taken out as much as I can but I have now reached about floor level and there are some very strongly wedged/cemented bricks which seem to be at the bottom (access inside the flue is limited to a brick sized opening that we have made).

The chimney is an internal one - one side of it (the side we have been investigating) is in the drawing room, and the other side faces onto the hallway. We know the house has a cellar, but it does not seem to go anywhere near this chimney stack.

There seem to be two possibilities: 1) the flue was for a very small fireplace in the hallway; or 2) the flue went into another cellar area, perhaps to some kind of boiler or furnace.

There is no evidence from the brickwork inside the flue that it opened out into a fireplace on the other side. We would love to know if there is a cellar space below it, particularly as we are renovating and could work this into our plans - but it is proving very difficult to establish.

Does anyone have any ideas on how we can get to the bottom of this - or whether boilers/furnaces/hallway fireplaces would have been common in large Victorian homes in approx 1880?

 

[Socksitis]

I don't know about furnace, but what about a copper wash boiler?

 

[Lime]

I don't know about furnace, but what about a copper wash boiler?

Seconded.

 

[Kearn]

It is very narrow - maybe a foot and a half wide -

this isn't narrow for a flue, for a fireplace opening, yes, but definitely could coincide with a copper or something than only needed direct extraction not open burning space and smoke gathering. is there evidence as to which wall may have been accessing it? assuming it was always a drawing room, it would be a strange place for a copper? would it make sense in the hallway given layout and traffic etc to be doing chores on the other side of the wall?

We would love to know if there is a cellar space below it, particularly as we are renovating and could work this into our plans - but it is proving very difficult to establish.

beyond an external exploration, which based on layout probably wont help and assuming you have suspended floorboards, there is probably only one sure fire way - lift one somewhere innocuous, as carefully as possible and see whats underneath...! you say you 'know' that the house has a cellar, does this mean you haven't accessed yet? there will be clues from within the cellar for blocked walls/fireplaces etc.