Under the garden

[jocelyn plummer]

or the 'Hotel from hell' that rose from the ashes of trials and tribulations as featured on TV?

 

[Penners]

I'm there again on Monday (to look at the sample panel of repaired garden wall) and I'll ask. I can guarantee the catering should be exceptional (for reasons that can't be disclosed here - there, that's got you wondering, hasn't it?)

I'm guessing famous hotelier or TV Chef....

And football club director?

I reckon we've just about exhausted all the possible explanations for this strange structure, Gareth. Just please promise that, if you ever get any kind of authoritative information about it, you will let us know.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I'm there again on Monday (to look at the sample panel of repaired garden wall) and I'll ask. I can guarantee the catering should be exceptional (for reasons that can't be disclosed here - there, that's got you wondering, hasn't it?)

I'm guessing famous hotelier or TV Chef....

And football club director?

I reckon we've just about exhausted all the possible explanations for this strange structure, Gareth. Just please promise that, if you ever get any kind of authoritative information about it, you will let us know.

No, it's not Her. (And I must say that when I went to a conference at the club in question, in the restaurant that bears Her name, the catering left a lot to be desired, unless deep-fried beige things are your idea of a feast).

But of course, I will let you all know if anyone ever works out what the mystery room is for.

 

[CatherineB]

My vote's for a smuggler's den, for what it's worth. External access, not via house, so the freetraders could get in to drop off the goods.
Sailors got through a lot of rum & brandy, and I'm sure admirals are no exception!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

My vote's for a smuggler's den, for what it's worth. External access, not via house, so the freetraders could get in to drop off the goods.
Sailors got through a lot of rum & brandy, and I'm sure admirals are no exception!

Latest far-from-official thought seems to be a strong room of some sort. Smugglers' den would be great, but although it's close to what was a navigable river, you'd have to sail up 30 miles from the coast, through several towns, to get there.

 

[Wren]

The tunnels elsewhere leading down to the river do suggest smuggling, but didn't the great country houses often have tunnels for servants so that they could come and go but be hidden at the same time. So it would be interesting to know if that theory also fits - ie would the river bank have been a convenient point to route the servants to so that they were out of view of the house (the river would naturally be on lower ground so could make sense).

The replacement brickwork at the top of the structure suggests that there may have been a outlet to something above. The fact that there was a lawn directly above might not conflict with this if in the centre of the lawn they planned to build a glasshouse heated from below. And then the glasshouse never gets built because of a change of fortunes. This idea comes from having seen the coal tunnel at Chatsworth. But then I don't think the timeline fits if this was built before glasshouses became fashionable.
And not sure where the shelves fit into this theory.

So what would have been fashionable at that time - a mausoleum. Which could explain the shelves, and also the rather inconvenient mode of entry (vertically to begin with)?? Is it impossible that a house which had built a chapel might not at some other point in time tried to build a mausoleum?

Is legitimate trade of valuable goods also a possibility?

 

[Penners]

Latest far-from-official thought seems to be a strong room of some sort.

But what kind (or volume) of valuables require a strongroom of that height? Did the owners of the house collect priceless giraffes?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

An update - No sign (yet) of the other cellars said to exist near the mystery chamber. The passage from the "under the site of the house" cellars towards the river is, according to the archaeologist, an unusually large and well-constructed sixteenth century drain :roll: . The Famous Five may be cancelling their holiday...
Still no better guesses on the purpose of the Mystery Chamber though.

 

[biffvernon]

The passage from the "under the site of the house" cellars towards the river is, according to the archaeologist, an unusually large and well-constructed sixteenth century drain

Er, didn't you say it could not have been an ice house because there was no drain?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The passage from the "under the site of the house" cellars towards the river is, according to the archaeologist, an unusually large and well-constructed sixteenth century drain

Er, didn't you say it could not have been an ice house because there was no drain?

That's a different set of cellars.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[biffvernon]

So they put the drain in the wrong place. Thank heavens we have Building Control these days.