An Ancient Room Under the House

By Miss Cellania in Architecture on Apr 9, 2010 at 9:07 pm

Pat and Diane Farla of Shropshire, England moved into their home three years ago and wondered what a rectangle in the floor represented. On Good Friday, they has a few drinks and decided to find out. They pulled the metal grid up and found a narrow tunnel which led to an underground chamber! The room held a wooden cross, brick seats along the wall, an open chest containing newspapers from the 1930s, and some hooks hanging from the ceiling. The Farlas also found a stairway leading back up to a cupboard in their dining room.

The Farla said the deeds of the detached house dated from 230 years ago and they believe that at some point it had been used as a pub.

Richard Westwood Brookes, historical documents expert for nearby Shropshire auctioneers Mullocks, said: ‘If the deeds are over 230 years old and the room dates back to the 1700′s, there’s a chance it could have been used as a Catholic hideaway or for other nonconformist religious groups.

‘There’s a possibility a room like that could be used as a clandestine Catholic church as you couldn’t be a Catholic during that time – you would be persecuted and executed.

‘It may well have been a Catholic priest hole – but it all depends on what the age was.’

He added that if it had been built during World War II it could have been a type of bunker.

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Tags: chamber, History, underground

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taylor dayne
Apr 9th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
a previous owner tells a different story (from the article’s comments):
”
We lived there 1981-96! The ‘cross’ is some rotten wood left over from 1986 building restoration that we didn’t clear out… The house was a public house “The Barley Mow” late 1800s-early 1900s, and we thought the raised cellar sides are the stillages for the barrels. Gas lighting was added after construction, so there would have been ledges for oil lamps in the cellar.

We reckoned the house was constructed in the mining and industrial boom early 1800s, rather later than Catholic persecution. The front door used to lead into a hallway, with the door and stairs down to the cellar straight ahead – no apparent attempt to conceal. There are footings for an earlier, smaller building under the dining room, now covered with concrete – could have been anything.

But we like the way this story could run
“
Gorf
Apr 10th, 2010 at 12:55 am
How much time until an idiotic viral for a movie appears, with a guy discovering an ancient something in his cellar?
Cleve
Apr 10th, 2010 at 2:38 am
“Catholic priest hole” huh? Back in my day we called those altar boys.

Thank you folks, I’ll be here all night! Tip your waitress!
Ed_geneva
Apr 10th, 2010 at 4:59 am
Silly Americans, something from the 1800s is not ‘ancient’.
Stuart McCracken
Apr 10th, 2010 at 10:06 am
Turn it into a bar or a home theatre!
twoeightnine
Apr 10th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Silly Ed_genevans, not realizing that the Daily Mail called it ‘ancient’ first and that’s a British paper.
Lea
Apr 10th, 2010 at 11:46 am
I would love to discover something like that in my house.
soubriquet
Apr 10th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
I’ve seen dozens like this, the benches are simply to raise food up from the floor. Anybody who works in the maintenance and alteration of 16th to mid 19th century houses in Britain will have seen cellars almost identical to this.
Niches in the wall were for candles or lanterns, building style early to mid 1800s. In the area where I work, most of the older houses have cellars similar to this, raised slabs of stone for keeping meat, cheese, butter etc.
In some larger cellars you’ll find a big stone slab table in the middle of the room. These muppets, no doubt, would say that shows it was a black-magic crypt where beautiful virgins were sacrificed….
Miss Cellania
Apr 10th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
I wish I had a cellar like this! Mine has a half-concrete, half dirt floor, a wooden bench, and cinder blocks to hold shelves.
ted
Apr 10th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Aww. Someone already used my Catholic Priest Hole joke.

Does anybody edit this stuff before it gets published?
Foreigner1
Apr 11th, 2010 at 4:31 am
“On Good Friday, they had a few drinks and decided to find out.”

A few drinks eh? Well that explains a lot on how they perceived that cellar…

But what I don’t understand is how come they lived there for about 3 years before they finally got as far as to examine their own house…? How stupid is that?

But agree with soubriquet- I see nothing special about that cellar. And if you look at the masonry, it is rather clear that the benches are not benches for humans but rather for food-storage.

But hey- who cares about history…

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