The great coal hole quest ……….. can it get much more nerdy?

Now, even I am surprised at the number of people who share my fascination of those iron coal hole covers.*

A lost coal cover, 2019

They came in heaps of different designs and not all were round.

But enough of the covers, because Adam Brock reminded me that if you have a coal hole cover, then there will be a coal cellar.

And as his coal hole cover was long ago cemented over, he asked if I would like to see pictures of the space underneath.

To which the answer was yes and so began the Coal Hole Hall of Fame.

An empty coal cellar, 2019

In four of the houses I have lived in there was a coal cellar, two  of which included a small store room and the big one used for washing clothes.

This last one had the copper for heating the water, a slopping floor to the drain outside, and one even had an old rusty mangle which must have been a challenged to who ever took it down the cellar stairs.

But I digress.

As a youngster the coal cellar was the important one, which every week would take its new supply of coal.

Many will still remember that sound, as the coal shoot down from above. 

It began with the rush as two 56 lbs bags of coal, descended into the cellar with that loud impatient rushing sound, followed by the quieter one as the pile settled, which within minutes finished with the smell of the coal permeating the lower part of the house.

A full coal cellar, 2019

So, for all those that remember the cellar and especially had the job of collecting it in the bucket or scuttle, here are two pictures of Adam’s coal cellar and one from Anne-Marie who told me,"we have cellars in our homes in Old Trafford. 

Actual coal hole itself gone...but area it landed in and was stored still very much there, and full of sons 'rubbish'. 

We'd be lost without the cellar space for storage. 

I do remember, vaguely, the coal being there as kids".

And for anyone who just dismisses this as a bit of silliness, well yes, it is, but it is also a reminder of all those who made their living from coal, starting with the men who hewed the black stuff in the bowels of the earth, to those who delivered it by horse and cart, and those coal yards which were a feature of all our suburban railway stations.

Location, Adam Brocks Coal cellar

Pictures; the coal cellar, from the collections of Adam Brock, and Anne Marie Kelly, 2019

*Coal hole covers, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Coal%20hole%20covers