Under the garden

[Gareth Hughes]

Just some pics of a site I visited last week. Ideas as to what it really was would be welcome as I don't believe "larder" adequately explains a 15 foot square, 25 foot high, vaulted chamber built under the garden of one of our local country houses, but built (probably) at about the time (mid / late 1700s) that the main part of the house was demolished and the remaining wing became a mere farmhouse.

It certainly isn't an ice house either. The entrance (which arrives at the lowest level of the chamber) is down a sloping passageway from an antechamber reached (now) by a manhole cover. It doesn't quite line up with the house above ground and is set below what has, it seems, always been garden (the main part of the house was on the other side of the surviving wing, as evidenced by its own extensive ruined cellars). The top has caved in and been rebuilt sometime around 100 years ago.

View attachment 2
Corner niches were shelved, main niches were not - same arrangement on all four sides except where the tunnel enters the room at one corner


View attachment 1
Niche in centre of each wall



looking up - the red brickwork is a later replacement and comes to within a couple of feet of the lawn above.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Not to scale, but a quick west - east section to explain a little more:
The thick black line is ground level, the dark grey stripe on the left is the external wall of the house (with the house itself off the image to the left).
Manhole and (rectangular) ante-chamber to the left, sloping tunnel in the middle, main (square) chamber on the right.

 

[Flyfisher]

How interesting. I was thinking ice-house until you discounted it. Your sketch shows it being completely underground - is there really no means of ventilation?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

How interesting. I was thinking ice-house until you discounted it. Your sketch shows it being completely underground - is there really no means of ventilation?

There doesn't appear to be, except what gets in round the manhole, at least not since the top couple of feet was rebuilt (c1900). Can't be an ice house as 1. there's no drain, and 2. the entrance is at the bottom - no sign of there ever having been an entrance higher up.

 

[robgil]

on top of the larger dome , is this where the new bricks are? perhaps there was a vent in there? an elaborate wine store perhaps?
although because of the height it kind of narrows it down as to what could have been stored there , if it were a store.

edit - i am not convinced the man hole was an entrance , why not put in steps?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The "blister" on top of the dome in my sketch is where the new bricks are - but even if there was a vent there originally, it would have come up in the middle of the lawn.
It has been suggested that the entrance was from the house somehow, but there's no obvious sign of a blocked opening from the "antechamber", and the surviving cellar of the house doesn't immediately abut the antechamber either.
The height of the thing it what impressed me most - and the top 2/3 of it all useless (except for the merest hint of a possible floor line above the arches)

Locals who played there in the 1950s when it was all rather derelict tell of other cellars under the same lawn, however (and also of tunnels under the river, to Norwich, to the sea, etc) - the owner is having a geophys survey done next week.

 

[Penners]

What a fascinating mystery!

Actually, I think I may have an explanation for the structure - assuming you found something like this inside:

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Although you have mentioned all the obvious theories, and in part, discounted them, a mention of Norwich and tunnels reminded me of a similar undercroft in a property in King's Lynn, which was where the Merchant owner brought in and traded goodies from far away places.

 

[JohnB]

The owners weren't running a business that operated outside of the system were they?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The house was built for an Admiral about 1580, and the estate sold to another Admiral about 1750 (the latter date being -it seems - both when the house was largely demolished, and when this vault was built).

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Just to give a bit more context - dark grey is the surviving house and forecourt / kitchen garden walls, pale grey the extent of the house before c1750. Pink are the surviving cellars beneath the site of the house, red the mystery vault, and blue, the well.

 

[Moo]

It was obviously a stately air-raid shelter.

 

[Flyfisher]

Could it be a 'priest hole'? A sort of period panic-room?

 

[robgil]

illegal activities hence it being buried? perhaps a large alcohol stil?

 

[Penners]

Extraordinary that it was apparently never, at any time, underneath the house.

I made a flippant jokette about Tutankhamun, but is it possible that this was a mausoleum? Actually, even as I suggest that, I find myself severely doubting whether they would have placed corpses that close to the well (assuming the latter was always there).

 

[JoceAndChris]

Penners - I also thought of corpses - how about pig carcases? Or giant bulls, as it's so tall.

It's really amazing! What will the new owners use it for?

My under the gardeh rainwater tank's a bit like that - vaulted and fancy - but the niches with the shelves discount it from being anything like that. How very mystifying, but intriguing to speculate!

 

[robgil]

could it have held a furnace to heat the house?

 

[worms]

While there is almost certainly a prosaic and sensible reason for this structure, it does look like the archetypal satanic temple that features near the end of many a Hammer horror movie!

 

[FamilyWiggs]

How odd. The shelves suggest some sort of storage - but so much of the room (floor area and height) seems wasted for storage.

Are there any signs of other fixings or attachments on the walls? What about any signs of heating or burning (smokehouse?) Any "industrial" process signs? What is the floor made of?

What about if the replaced bricks weren't originally a solid roof, but a flue or glazed? Could a seafarer have tried to create a warm (subterranean) tropical climate for some of the plant/tree specimens he'd collected? Really clutching at straws here.

Would it have been water tight?

 

[JoceAndChris]

We are probably all wrong, but by God! Aren't we ingenious?