Cellar (building)

“ The ground-floor of the western range of buildings, as at Canterbury, Chester and Peterborough, was usually the cellarer's building (cellarium) , containing the great cellar and buttery of the monastery, and frequently divided from the church by a vaulted passage, which was the main entrance to the cloister from the curia and was the outer parlour, where necessary business could be done with lay-folk. But the variable position of the curia with regard to the cloister made the use of this range liable to variation; and sometimes, as we have seen, the great cellar was a vault beneath the frater. ”

“ Remember, it is the rust-preventing qualities of linseed oil, combined with the oxide of iron, that makes steel or iron sheets resist the corrosive action of oxygen, which is ever present in the atmosphere. (See page 101.)
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THE CELLAR.
The cellar under a dwelling house has many advocates. It is a convenient, cool place, and nineteen times out of twenty is a damp, dark, musty, foul-smelling place. It cannot well be otherwise and be a cellar. It is a store-room for all sorts of vegetables; odds and ends of most everything are laid away in that dark retreat. ”

“ The plans provide for a cellar under the principal building only, which gives a clear space of 22 × 25 feet. If desired, the space beneath the wing may be included at an additional cost of $65. The excavations for the cellar in the earth is 3 feet 8 inches deep; this allows the foundation-walls to be 7 feet high. The earth thrown out is to be graded around the building to the hight of 11⁄2 foot, thus leaving two feet of the foundation exposed on the outside. Country houses are frequently set so low down as to be a matter of regret ever afterwards. ”

“ Every house should have a cellar with stone or brick walls and cement floors. And it is of the utmost importance that the cellar be dry. To insure this, the greatest care should be given to the outside finish of the walls—reversing the usual practice of carefully finishing the interior, and on the exterior allowing the rough edges of stone to project and form little courses and channels through which the moisture will pass. ”

“ This earth finish around the foundation is especially adapted to wet or clayey soils, where it is desirable to have the cellar mostly above ground; at the same time it secures greater elevation to the whole building.... There are marked features of dissimilarity in the several openings, and in the details of the exterior dressing, each part being adapted to its special purpose, and so arranged as to be in keeping with the general design; it therefore unites harmony and beauty.... Cellar, (fig. 66.) —The Cellar extends under the whole house; clear hight 61⁄2 feet. ”

“ If not in a loose, gravelly, or sandy soil, the cellar should be kept dry by a drain leading out on to lower ground.
The building beyond, and adjoining the wood-house, 79 contains a swill-house 16×12 feet, with a window in one end; a chimney and boiler in one corner, with storage for swill barrels, grain, meal, potatoes, &c., for feeding the pigs, which are in the adjoining pen of same size, with feeding trough, place for sleeping, &c., and having a window in one end and a door in the rear, leading to a yard. ”

“ The construction of the frame work was entrusted to Samuel A. Folsom, who, acting as foreman of the carpenters, succeeded in getting the building ready for occupancy at the end of five months, or November 14th. So great, however, was the amount of unfinished work in the halls and rooms upstairs and of cement lining needed for the excavation walls in the cellar that a considerable number of students were employed principally at this work during that and the following term. ”

“ The Root Cellar
This building, located fifty feet northwest of the mansion and adjacent to the icehouse, consists of a one story brick structure above ground, approximately [36] fifteen feet two inches square, with a full cellar below ground level. Access to the cellar is through steep steps of rough cut stone, located on the right side of the structure. Access to the icehouse is directly opposite.
Figure 20. Detail, dome and ground level opening, icehouse. 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.
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Evidence of ventilators can be seen on both front and rear. ”

“ The excavations under the ancient houses of Dudley Street possess no windows at all, and the only way in which light and ventilation can be conveyed to the wretched inhabitants is through a hole in the pavement - a narrow opening, no larger than might be made by removing an ordinary paving-stone.
Leading down into the cellar is a ladder or a flight of wooden steps protected by a handrail. The roof of the cellar is level with the common roadway, and its floor must be several feet below the sewage and gas pipes. ”

“ But, as a general rule, such room is better on a level with the main floor of the dwelling, and there are usually sufficient occupations for the cellar without them.
All cellar walls should be at least 18 inches thick, for even a wooden house, and from that to 2 feet for a stone or brick one, and well laid in strong lime-mortar. Unmortared cellar walls are frequently laid under wooden buildings, and pointed with lime-mortar inside; but this is sometimes dug out by rats, and is apt to crumble and fall out otherwise. A complete cellar wall should be thoroughly laid in mortar. ”

“ The cellar is the foundation of domestic comfort. Into its dark, cavernous recesses the child's imagination fearfully goes. Bogies guard the bins of choicest apples. I know not what comical sprites sit astride the cider-barrels ranged along the walls. The feeble flicker of the tallow-candle does not at all dispel, but creates, illusions, and magnifies all the rich possibilities of this underground treasure-house. When the cellar-door is opened, and the boy begins to descend into the thick darkness, it is always with a heart-beat as of one started upon some adventure. ”

“ Why would any one build a round cellar?”
“So the sand can’t wedge off the corners. You know,” Alf reminded me, “I told you they didn’t build cellars on the cape. Well, they don’t, not regular ones, but that’s the kind they do build. Round, like a well under the kitchen, to keep food cool.”
“Sure,” said the judge, seeing the doubt in my eyes. “All the good houses have them. I’ve got one myself.” ”

“ A cellar is a luxury in the simple cabin; but here we were provided with an apartment more complete, in its conveniencies, than those of older countries, the floor being well levelled, and the walls faced with stones of ample size. The settler had formed, in one corner, a large cavity about three feet deep. This was lined with mortar, and paved with smooth, round pebbles from the brook. A tunnel, with a wooden trunk and sliding flood-gate, about four inches square, led from the bottom of this basin, through the foundations of the wall, to the bed of a rivulet at some distance on the lawn. ”

“ There, to-day as yesterday, are to be seen in Dudley Street, Seven Dials, the deep black cellars, reached through a gap in the pavement, and by means of a steep ladder, and in each, at a greater depth in the earth than the sewers and the nests of the sewer rats, families of human beings - fathers, mothers, and little children-live and eat and drink, and make themselves at home. ”

“ After working on the night of the 25th, two men were left down in the cellar to cover up all traces of the work during the day, and as soon as it was dark to complete the work—to go into the large sewer, explore it, and have every thing ready by eight or nine o'clock, at which time the bricks would be removed from the hole leading into the cellar, which had to be placed carefully in their original position every night, from the beginning to the completion of the work. ”

“ The cellars are entered down a steep incline under a low stone arch, the masonry above which is overgrown with ivy in large clusters and straggling creeping plants. We soon come upon a deep recess to the right, wherein stands a unique cumbersome screw-press, needing ten or a dozen men to work the unwieldy capstan which sets the juice flowing from the crushed grapes into the adjacent shallow trough. On our left hand are a couple of ancient reservoirs, formed out of huge blocks of stone, with the entrance to a long vaulted cellar filled with wine in cask. ”

“ All under the house runs a great cellar. I knew this from the first, because one broiling hot day, soon after I came, Sally took me down to get cool after I had dressed for somebody's At Home, and looked like a freshly boiled lobster. It's a series of rooms, perfectly ventilated, with rough walls, and cemented floors. One of the rooms is of enormous size, and there are stone pillars dotted about here and there for supports. There is one other that is rather large, but the rest are small. One is used as if it were an ice house ”

“ Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be found the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after the superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the earth. ”

“ The cellar is built as a cellar should be, strictly with a view to the practical--that is, to the comfort of its inhabitants, the mighty spirits imprisoned in the mighty casks. For the comfort of those who came to commune with those mighty spirits, a broad oak settle with strong arms would and did suffice ”

“ The water cellar is not a cellar at all, but a stone-paved room off the patio, delightfully cool and sloppy of a fiery July day, with the water-carriers unloading, and filling the array of dripping red jars with the day’s supply from the public fountain.
Every Spanish peasant wears a knife in his sash. ”

“ A cellar, dark and noisome, under a city street: an old woman in a long blue cloak and a white cap, crouching over a spark of fire: a half-naked child playing on the naked floor: in a corner a man sprawling half-drunk, smoking a clay pipe. ”

“ She took me down six damp stone steps, then lifted the latch of a massy, weather-beaten, oaken doorway, and led me within.
It was a vast, dim, vaulted cellar. The rough black roof of rugged masonry was hung by vistas of such mighty tapestries of grimy cobwebs as never mortal saw before. On the near side the row of little windows, dusty and neglected, let in thin streams of light that only made the general darkness the more visible. ”

“ You creep part way down the cellar stairs with only the light of a single tallow candle, and behold by its dim glimmer an expanse of dark water, boundless as the sea. On its surface, in dire confusion, float barrels and boxes, butter firkins and washtubs, boards, planks, hoops, and staves without number, interspersed with apples, turnips, and cabbages, while half-drowned rats and mice, scrambling up the stairway for dear life, drive you affrighted back to the kitchen....Now consider the case of one of these old farmhouse cellars that has been in use fifty years or more. ”

“ I don't mean a cellar with a smooth floor, and coal-bins, and a big furnace, and shelves with jars of nice jam on them and glasses of jelly; I've been in that kind of a cellar too—I like quince jelly the best; it's first rate spread on bread and butter—but I'm talking of another kind of a cellar, one with the house all taken away, and only a big brick chimney left in the centre, with the top knocked off of that, and bricks and pieces of stone and chunks of mortar scattered all round; with berry bushes growing in one corner, and wild vines growing all around the edges. ”

“ But only one of the rooms had a roof of its own, though there was a sort of cellar under the floor of one of the others which served at once as a lodging for beggars in winter, as a storehouse for food when there was any in supply and as a place of deposit for the ancient iron chest in which the common fund of money was kept. ”

“ The smells of cellars are a rare treat to dogs, especially ancient Brooklyn cellars which have a cachet all their own. The cellar of the Haunted Bookshop was, to Bock, a fascinating place, illuminated by a warm glow from the furnace, and piled high with split packing-cases which Roger used as kindling. ”

“ For only a handful of houses remained, and though many a cellar was still intact under the ruins, cellars, considered as human habitation, may, without undue exaggeration, be said to lack some of the advantages of modern civilisation. How was Tante Joséphine, how were the stained and battered scarecrows that accompanied her to provide for themselves during the winter? Would broken bricks make bread? Would fire-eaten iron-work make a blanket? ”

“ There is no shelving or other built-in furniture to indicate the use of the cellar. Since the room above and the roof are replacements, there is little indication of actual use, and the name "root cellar" has been used only for convenience.
The cellar walls are brick, laid in common bond, with three courses of stretchers to one of headers. This bond is uniform for the structure, above and below ground. The average size of bricks is eight and three-eighths by four by two and one-half inches. The plain cornice is uniform, probably indicating that the roof was originally hipped. ”

“ But these are inverted garrets, rather than cellars. They are refrigerators for pure air; and they keep a mellow light of their own. When you go into one of them it seems as if the house were standing on its head to express its joy and comfort.
But the Susan House cellar was one of dread, aside from the noise proceeding out of it. Bobaday knew this before they opened a door upon a narrow-throated descent.
One of Zene's stories became vivid. It was a story of a house where nobody could stay, though the landlord offered it rent-free. ”