Finding the cellar...

[Sahara]

Hi everyone,

I would be very grateful if someone could help me. To cut a long story short, a previous owner of our cottage who was born here around 80 years ago visited to see her old house. When we invited her in she mentioned a coal cellar. She was very sure and gave a number of detailed descriptions of when she used to go down there as a child. We have spoken to neighbours and friends of the previous owner(s) of our cottage and they are not aware of a cellar.

What I wanted to know was how would we could find an entrance or what signs should we look for to check if we might have one. The lady led us to believe that it could be under the staircase which has changed direction since she remembered it.

I know it's a pretty broad question but I really don't know where to start or if there is anyone who offers a service anywhere who are able to find such things. The cottage is approximately 200yrs old.

Sahara's husband

 

[JoceAndChris]

What's under your staircase now? I remember my friends went on and on for years about their hidden cellar in Sheffield and in the end my husband got a saw and cut up the floor under their stairs and jumped down, very reckless, and very interfering, but they were grateful.

Does it sound hollow when you bang it?

 

[MdB]

There was all sorts of talk about a cellar in our neighbours house but they completely dug up the floor and found nothing. I could never believe that there was one as it would have been full of water.

If you have a wooden floor then I would have thought it would be easy to find a board that had been lifted in the past to take a look. If it is solid then you either have to dig a hole or get something like ground penetrating radar in but it might not be suitable and would certainly be expensive.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Is there any evidence outside for where the coal was tipped in?

 

[Sahara]

Thanks for all your thoughts, really is appreciated. We have a concrete floor throughout the whole of the downstairs. There isn't anything obvious looking at the understairs through the understairs cupboard. Outside we have a mix of concrete close to the house and then a patchwork of brick and large stones under which I haven't found anything so far. Would you think that the coal chute would be fairly close to the outer wall?

 

[LadyArowana]

Get one of your friends to anonymously phone the local constabulary with a tip that they remember a time when one of our more notorious mass murderers was lodging there and they will come around and look for the cellar for free!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Get one of your friends to anonymously phone the local constabulary with a tip that they remember a time when one of our more notorious mass murderers was lodging there and they will come around and look for the cellar for free!

That's how I hope to get the garden sorted... :twisted:

 

[MdB]

http://www.snopes.com/crime/clever/nowplant.asp

 

[Penners]

Sahara - this will probably sound very unkind, but how confident are you of the old lady's memory? At her age it's not impossible that she's perhaps got a bit confused between your house and another one that she might have lived in.

However assuming that you have confidence in her faculties, and the one-time cellar entrance probably has been concreted over, then there's not a huge amount you can do without (a) causing a fair old mess with trial-and-error concrete removal, or (b) spending a fair bit of money on ground radar.

A couple of other thoughts. You might try checking the parish records for any old evidence of the property's interior, or it's just possible that the local planning authority might have some old planning permission drawings.

 

[Sahara]

Wow thanks everyone for the help. Yeah I had a good look around and couldn't find anything outside regarding a hatch or where one might be and rummaged around under the stairs and it seems like it has all been raised up on a big concrete plinth. So I think you're probably right, although certain about the old lady's memories (she explained a number of things about the house upstairs that she didn't see which seems to match, I think it may have been out of use for some time... if there has been one.

I think I will check the parish records next.

To be honest my wife is probably pleased, I've got numerous other jobs that I should be doing around the house!

Thanks again!

 

[Onetap]

Get one of your friends to anonymously phone the local constabulary with a tip that they remember a time when one of our more notorious mass murderers was lodging there and they will come around and look for the cellar for free!

Don't count on it. I had a Detective Constable knock on the door of a former house, to ask if I knew of someone who'd lived there some 30 or so years previously. They'd 'received information' that the husband had murdered his wife and disposed of her body. I sent him down the road to the only neighbour who had been there at that time and I never heard any more. The copper seemed annoyed that he'd been sent to follow up an ancient crime.

The house had a concrete ground floor, but had been built with a suspended wooden floor. Many other houses in the street had the wooden ground floors concreted over, since the wood was prone to rot. There were some hollow spots under the concrete.

 

[robgil]

why not ask a coal man to deliver you a bag of coal , then , tell him to chuck it in the coal cellar?

 

[chuckey]

Why would some one put a large concrete plinth under the stairs? My wooden stair terminated in the last three steps being stone, so if one was to modernise the floor, the bottom only would have been on a concrete plinth. Two conflicting thoughts, occur to me, one is that when faced with the steps under the stairs, the builders put in some wood work to support the concrete and just poured, adding more thickness to counterbalance the void. The other is that if the rest of the floors are all concrete, what is it resting on?, could be that the original cellar had walls which were boarded between then concreted or the massive void was just filled in and concreted over, but why fiddle about with the stairs? I would think its unlikely that you have a cellar, you could just(!) drill a 1/2" holes through the concrete floor and see if you have a 6' deep void underneath or earth or if you are really lucky 4" of foam and a DPC
Frank