In our garden in Whittlesey there are the normal accesses to the drains …and another that hides a hole. The hole fascinated each of us in different ways. I am the historian in the family (and the researcher), so for me, I wanted to know the why and the what… To my ex – it was a valuable source of gravel, as the previous owner had filled it to the brim. To the boys, however, it was an adventure on how they could use it and where it might lead.
As the ex gradually emptied the gravel and the hole got deeper and deeper, it got more and more interesting. Lying on the grass and waving a torch into the dark showed that what looked like a well went sideways under the lawn, towards the house, with an arched roof and signs of ancient soot. Each brick was handmade and small. Almost all were slightly curved to make the perfect circle we could see at the top…
Older son was fascinated and devised a genius plan with his mate where they suspended younger son upside down, holding a leg each, and lowered him gradually into the opening – so he could report back… Thankfully, he bounced and there was lots of gravel, still in the hole to cushion his fall… But older son was on notice for the following few months about what would happen if younger son’s grades dropped… The cover was replaced and the hole hidden again.
Older son (Os) kept younger son (Ys) awake late into the night developing horrific stories of creatures who would burrow below the house and come up through the fireplace in the dark…. Sometimes the age difference between the boys played against my natural urge to use Os as a babysitter…
This meant that unearthing the real use of the hole became much more important…
Theory One – a well – no go – didn’t hold water… Literally…
Theory Two – gravel store…. Nope not very likely
Theory Three – a secret passageway to a vampire lair… More plausible than one and two – and more in keeping with it being at least two hundred years older than our early 19th century home….
Theory Four – the underground flu and chimney of an ancient brick kiln… Long filled in and forgotten by the time our house was built two hundred years ago… This was born out by the garden wall near the house. This wall predates the current version of the house and the late Georgian house which ours extended in the 1830s. The Georgian House’s Dairy was built against what is now part of the Garden and to build that house they filled in the archways that were there, originally. The arched entrances could well have been the main Kiln entrances and are at least a hundred years older than the Georgian House. I suspect, even older…
So, I am going with Four… The kids, even though they are grown up now, still have faith in three…
One day I will find out… 🙂
….ooh the light, the light hurts…..
