It's important that this area be cleaned up and access restored. It seems to be your main building supports, plumbing, electrical ect. Left sealed up like this you'd never know about foundation erosion from water intrusion or mold issues or any number of problems. You simply CAN'T ignore this area like previous owners did. Here in Canada many old apartments and houses have foundation failure because owners seal up sub basements like this, and they just degrade and collapse once they fill with water. Regardless of ownership or zoning this area CANNOT be sealed back up the way it was. It's super important that this be dealt with. It may even be able to be turned into living space if there is no water seepage! Extra house space!!
Came here thinking exactly this. Not only does OP absolutely need to have a bunch of contractors to come in to properly check and renovate this place, but also prolly talk to their bank about borrowing against the increased value of the place. Not only is this a project that needs to be done (depending on where they are, the locality might require them to do it to prevent the place from being condemned), but extra space like this even if minimally restored could easily add half again the value of the house. People out here complaining about how it's haunted, but there are plenty of priests everywhere and any good contractor is superstitious enough that they're so thoroughly warded from gremlins that a simple wrathful ghost couldn't touch 'em.
It looks mostly like masonry & a grey silt, like wet ash, on the floors. I noticed big black plastic bags attached to the wall. I shouldn’t think it’s been closed up too long ie maybe a decade less. Where will this story go?
It's a coal shoot. For delivering coal from the front of the house. It looks like the foundations of a big house. Servants would have come down to shovel the coal. The rest was probably used as storage.
PleSe add this as part of your home! Even better do research on who owned that house under your home perviously! Find out the history please!!!!!! I absolutely need to know.
Get a skip, empty it out, re floor, point the walls and damp proof them and you have an extra floor to your house, like it was before you were there - storage, wine celler, party room all in the one area, cant go wrong!
I would definitely check out the history and original architect plans for this house. You have a very old cellar and basement. The fireplace and chimney were probably the original kitchen and cooking stove where the servants cooked and coal / wine cellar. You could make a fabulous basement flat underneath, add extra value to your flat and a rental income. Old buildings hold fascinating history.
You said at the end exactly what I was thinking! I would definitely not sleep well with all that connected to my house! Amazing but biting my nails the more you walked! lol
When I was working in the old posh buildings in London, they had these sort of spaces that went under the pavement and the road, and I think it was for delivering and storing coal. A lot of people use them to house the services now.
I’m willing to bet if this is under your flat and connected to it that these may be old maintenance tunnels.more than likely condemned for safety reasons or perhaps because they no longer had any use for them. Edit: judging by the plastic containers down there it looks like it may have been closed fairly recent, maybe as late as the 80s or as recent as the early 2000s. I’m sure you could ask whomever sold you the flat or is leasing it depending on your situation. Maybe your local library may have clues as well, good luck!
This would be a huge undertaking but imagine it all cleaned up and turned into useable space. Even if just for storage…. Or the most awesome Halloween haunted house EVER! You could charge an entry to the dungeon.
That hole in the ceiling was part of the main road above her. Imagine falling into that hole and landing in those pitch black tunnels with all the exits sealed... 😮
You're in the back rooms now... Seriously though, the first one looks like a coal bunker, with a hole/chute above where they'd have poured it in from the street. The rest may well have been service quarters (laundry etc) - depends on the size of the entire property really.
This! 😂 The tunnels are just different rooms. Was probably inhabited years ago by maids of the house, used as a kitchen or storage. Access to the road would have been for coal deliveries or beer if an old pub. I've been in plenty of these cellars in my time just like this. They always look like this.
Just because your finding this space doesnt mean its part of your house when its a building that has multiple homes within it. Its like finding a basement with closed off access in your condo. You dont own that basement. It was probably all closed off when they turned it into individual homes within the main building. They block off whats not part of what they want to be part of the individual living spaces they are selling. Its how they turn old manufacturing buildings or old mental hospitals into condos. Someone still owns the building itself. You simply bought a small blocked off space within it. You could be considered trespassing or even destroying space that isnt yours.
Considering all the pipes and electricity clearly go through it it legally has to be accessible to the owners otherwise there'd be no way to fix or even do safety testing on anything which is illegal. Considering it is solely attached to her flat, doesn't lead to anyone else's it likely dies belong to her solely as it doesn't have access to any other flat.
oh wow it would be really interesting to go through all the tunnels and see how far they lead, and maybe to do some online research to find out it’s past uses
As you live in flats guessing groung floor. Its looks like basement coal bunkers used to be commond with coal fires or there wound be bunkers within the area of block of flats similar to a row of brick sheds for storing coal/fire wood
😱 My goodness it's a mess, is she sure the realtors were unaware of these rooms and the condition of the entire structure...is it safe? I am concerned for you and the workers....
It would be solicitor and vendor here in England and should be in the deeds but... Depends on who chopped the property up into flats they may have blocked it off as too much work. Then sold as seen after.
Will be interesting to see if all this does actually belong to your property, or if it has been condemned a long time ago and was not meant to be opened back up?
I have arrived (from Facebook) - feels a bit like how I felt when you discovered another door... 😆 Tidied up and renovated you could probably get a contract with the home office to house about 500 refugees... 😉
Where is your house located? As all that came to mind is that your place looks like it was part of the 'Underground Railroad'. This area looks like a 'Station', 'Safehouse' or 'Depot'.
I didn't see your building, but it's likely a row of flats and these are the basements ( ground floor) where the plumbing and boilers were kept along with coal and oil bunkers. Those pipes were likely sewer. It's essentially your building's foundations.
Wonder if it's like an old latrine system?!..emptying into a cistern that is cleaned by hand and then eventually pumped in subsequent years...until city public services were provided
You really need to learn to talk more and explain things better, rather than just whispers to other people in the room. As far as all that extra real estate goes you can block it all off again if you want. just because you found doesn't mean you are required to use it.
And stink up the shops in the same building? You'd be raided in no time once the smell wafts through and even more with the fireplace, coal shoot and condensation on the windows. Pretty stupid idea that.
