Trap-doors and posting photo's.

[jess marley]

We found a trap-door under some carpet yesterday and I'd like to post a piccy of it later to get your views..how, please? My mum reckons it's of the sort used to send coffins downstairs when stair access was tricky, but that doesn't fit because the stairwell is large... anyway, like I say, could some kind soul tell me how to post a picture of it. Thanks.

 

[Nemesis]

[Open Image]


Easiest way - click on the image of Paddington at Paddington (the history of which I will enthrall you with another time...) and then click on the small print at the top which says Free Image hosting (and not the bit which says PhotoGalaxy). Or try this:

http://host.photogalaxy.net

You should then have a box whch has a bit saying Browse. Click on that and hopefully it will load where your digital pics are stored on your computer. Mine are in My Pictures (and Picasa but that's separate - but I recommend it, it's a free download from Google).

http://picasa.google.co.uk/


Then you need to find the pic you want and get the file name loaded into the box on Photogalaxy. I do this by clicking on the image and then clicking on the image filename to get into the 'open' box - you may need to experiment. Click on OPEN and it should take you back to the Photogalaxy screen and the white box next to browse should have the link to your pic.

When you have done this press UPLOAD on Photogalaxy. It will take a short while then you will get another screen with your pic uploaded and three ways to link. Choose the bottom one - the one which says about BB code.

Click on the mumbo jumbo print in the box and it should all turn blue.

Then you 'cut' that (I use Edit drop down and cut or you can use keyboard shortcuts) and 'paste' it into the box on PPUK you use to write your post into. Best to open one to sart with but it doesn't really matter.

Press preview and with luck...


You can experiment of course in the experiment part of PPUK.

It's easier to do than it sounds actually! There are other progs you can use, such as ImageShack and Photobucket (which I'm sorry to see has changed its format and resizing isn't as useful) but this will get you started hopefully.

 

[jess marley]

[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]

There we go,, thanks for that Nemesis.

I guess it was just a hidey-hole, but seems too big, any ideas folks?

 

[Nemesis]

Interesting that PhotoGalaxy has also changed this afternoon - now has 'hosting by PhotoGalaxy' underneath!

Hmmm...

What's underneath? It may be that once there was no ceiling, simply the openjoists in the room under.

Used possibly to get furniture in and out? Or access to the room by ladder?

Or as you say - simply somewhere to hide things.

 

[jess marley]

[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]
I had always thought that these beams would have had a ceiling.... but their are no visible nail holes from laths, so I guess it's most likely a ladder to the room above, for those too lowly to use the posh stairs at the front of the house. The houses on this street took in a lot of lodgers, and built a lot of slum dwellings out back to cash in on the tin-mining boom, so I guess it's most likely something along those lines.

 

[Nemesis]

Out of interest - are the joists further apart there?

We have both hay loft and a bothy which were once accessed by trapdoors - the joists are wider there.

I suspect that this was either for servants or lodgers access, to sleeping quarters, as you say.

 

[jess marley]

No, the joists aren't any wider, the span is usually 20-25 inches fairly universally here, but that's plenty wide enough for some poor , undernourised s*d to clamber through of an evening...astonishing when you think of the relative wealth just on the other side of the wall, at the front of the house.

 

[Nemesis]

It may also of course have been used for storage, and things hauled up.

 

[worms]

Any sign of fixings/holes on the beams/joists above the trapdoor where a pulley or block & tackle could have been located?

 

[Gervase]

A friend has an almost identical trap in his cottage in Suffolk, The staircase is narrow and takes a sharp dog-leg, so it would seem that the trap was used to lug stuff up and down - not just coffins but bed frames, drawers and almost everything else that wouldn't go up the stairs.
Ceilings which are, effectively, the floorboards of the room above were surprisingly common, particularly in back hallways and kitchens. Having a ceiling lathed and plastered would have been expensive even in the 18th century, so it was often kept for the 'best' rooms at the front of the house.
Clearly our ancestors weren't that worried about the clomping of heavy feet above their heads!

 

[Penners]

Jess - the reason for the trap-door is as follows:-

About 120 years ago, the bedroom that has the trapdoor in the floor was occupied by a rather nubile housemaid. Needless to say, the man of the house couldn't resist enjoying her charms. However, his wife got to know about this, and decided to buy a big dog. She trained it to sleep on the stairs, so that - if her husband tried to creep up to the housemaid's room - the dog would bark and alert her.

So, while the wife was away visiting her sick sister in Ashby de la Zouche, the husband constructed the trapdoor. He could then stay up late and, once his wife was asleep, prop a ladder up and shin up for a ration of hows-yer-father with the maid, without having to negotiate the dog.

Some months later, the wife woke up to hear the sounds of romping from the maid's room. So she ran off with the milkman's second cousin, who ran a pub in St Austell.

 

[Nemesis]

No. a ladder would be too obvious.

A rope hoisted up and down?

 

[Penners]

Nah - he tried a rope first, but found that climbing it left him too knackered to do justice to the housemaid.

 

[jess marley]

[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]I really don't think it's an access issue for furniture or goods as the front stairs (see above) can take most things probably...I honestly think it's a lodger or servants hatch..or indeed, a lovers retreat..a solution my husband arrived at alarmingly quickly.
Ropes don't half chafe anyway.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]I really don't think it's an access issue for furniture or goods as the front stairs (see above) can take most things probably...I honestly think it's a lodger or servants hatch..or indeed, a lovers retreat..a solution my husband arrived at alarmingly quickly.
Ropes don't half chafe anyway.

Posting from Cornwall
Must be smugglers or poirates. Aaaaarh

 

[jess marley]

Now now, enough stereotyping there, we're not all criminals down this way...anyway, we're inland here in Liskeard...which isn't very inland I'll grant you.

 

[Penners]

When I were a lad in St Mawes, we used to smuggle mackerel ashore without tellin' the revenue men.

Fearless - that's us Kernow men!

 

[Nemesis]

Cod help us.

 

[Penners]

Cod moves in mysterious ways, you know.