Found a hole in my kitchen, what might it be?

[Nemesis]

We have hazelnut seedlings which grow everywhere, no assistance required!

 

[thiambal]

Nice weather and the need to shop for more goods for the kitchen has meant no update is available on the kitchen hole today.

Enough of this frivolity already! I have been on the edge of my seat for a month now and my chair is in serious danger of suffering uneven wear. What is the hole!?!?

 

[skier-hughes]

Ok, I'll go and do some more digging this morning....

 

[skier-hughes]

The two halves do not appear to meet, as the top hole has what looks like a solid bottom to it.

I have found some evidence of soot, but I still have more work to do opening it upwards, as I've been concentrating on downwards.

Someone suggested the bottom may be a storage hole for the small twigs used to burn when heating the top as a small oven?

Does this sound feasible?

I'm just having a cup of tea, then I'm getting back to it.

Graham

 

[Nemesis]

A faggot. (Oh how I miss Grimmers...)

Possible but I suspect that it was for ashes. And the niche seems not very deep, so possibly not an oven, although I wouldn't rule that out, which makes me suspect a small charcoal fire, for general cooking. The huge fire wasn't always used. If you fancied a bacon butty and the fire was damped down then smaller areas on which to cook were useful.

 

[Gervase]

I'm increasingly thinking that this was a device for burning miniature witches. Very much a niche market, of course, but developers had to be flexible...

 

[skier-hughes]

Thanks Nemesis and Gervaise, though I suppose in days gone by the witches would have been much smaller than we are now, so maybe for normal sized ones?

 

[Nemesis]

Witches being witches, they obviously can change shape, size and form...


http://www.arts.ed.ac.uk/witches/introduction.html

 

[Penners]

Oh how I miss Grimmers...

Yes - goodness knows what he would have made of...

the top hole has what looks like a solid bottom

 

[Penners]

...burning miniature witches. Very much a niche market, of course...

Of course - hence Graham's niche.

 

[thiambal]

Did you know that outbreaks of witch burning in Europe can be tracked against warm damp summers. These weather conditions make it more likely for the fungus - ergot - to grow on the rye crops. Ergot is essentially LSD. So what was really happening was people spent weeks on mild LSD trips during which time they decided women were witches and burnt them.

Witch burning was far more prevelent in continental Europe than England - but we never relied as heavily on rye as a crop.

Mind you, my prefered method is the ducking stool. Less messy than burning!

 

[Penners]

I don't remember an epidemic of witch-burning in the 60's - the heyday of LSD!

Mind you, you know what they say about remembering the 60's...

 

[Gervase]

It would seem that burning was largely done by them furriners, too. In the UK we preferred to hang 'em. Maybe the little niche was something in the way of an experiment - or perhaps the house was built by furriners.

 

[Mark]

But the what about the important details ?


What effect does witch ash have as a pozzelan in lime mortar ?

 

[Gervase]

It turns it into frogspawn, as any fule no...
Doh!

 

[Gervase]

Meanwhile, back among the holes; here's one I found while working on a place:

It appears to have been made quite a bit larger, but the area under the lintel has been filled in to produce a recess next to the fireplace. The infill would seem to be later than the actual building of the wall, as the stones of the wall were laid with mud (around 1740), whereas the infill is a lime-rich mortar, as can be seen from a closer view:

There's no flue as such, as this was originally a Welsh long-house with a 'simne fawr' of wickerwork and daub over first an open fire and later an iron range. Nevertheless, this would have been a warm spot, so I'm guessing this was a niche for storing salt or other stuff that didn't like the damp.
The sides of the opening (and the rest of the wall) were originally limewashed in ochre and then a rich, dark red:

 

[Gervase]

The wall has now been parged with copious amounts of cow dung to seal in the soot and tar and dubbed out ready for plastering, but I'm pleased that the client has decided to keep the odd 'ole:

 

[elm]

Obviously a popular colour in these parts:


[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]

This is the back of our simne fawr (stone version), I think the red bit has only survived because a ceiling/very big register plate(?) was at some point put in just below it. Found bits of ochre upstairs, and also a really lovely blue.