Featured Anyone know what these are.

Sounds logical. Would make sense that they'd also have a lock on them so criminals, like those that you used to put in the slammer, couldn't get in the house through them.

 

Learned something new here today.

 

I love coming here - it's always interesting !

 

OMG, you brought back memories, There was one at the house I lived in in Eastham ,Yes we had to down to the celler and push it up, then the coalman turfed the coal down, Memories.

 

I used to live in a house that had the most beautiful built-ins, including one for storing firewood.

But. You loaded it from outside through a door with an exterior-freakin-latch.

Fortunately, it was a cast iron door and a previous owner had welded that puppy shut.

 

The coal hole covers are rather nice looking, especially that fancy one with all the designs on top. We had a coal chute on our house when I was a kid (it was actually a 4 family unit) and everyone had a different chute on the side of the house. The basement was partially above ground level. Until now, I never considered how they latched. Must have been from the inside. It was really dusty in the basement after the coal man unloaded.

Davey, would your coal have heated the whole house in a centrally located furnace, or were the pieces put into burners? Asking because the chutes I remember were a lot larger than those holes.

 

When I was 7 years old Mamma and Daddy bought a house closer to the school I was going to (I could walk to school from that house). We were so glad that it had a fireplace (our former house didn't have a fireplace). This was a nice little house built just after WWII. In the living room it had a pretty brick fireplace and hearth and a nice wooden mantle to put photos and flower vases on (oh how wonderful that was going to be).

The "new-to-us" house had a working oil "floor-furnace" but the first really cold night (we'd been in the house a few months), Daddy brought in some firewood he had already gathered up and proceeded to make our first fire in the fireplace for his family to enjoy.

All I'll say is everything was going well until the firewood started burning and warming up the room. But then, something started appearing on the hearth. Coming out onto the hearth and then onto the oak flooring in the living room were LOTS of baby copperhead snakes which had apparently been in the wood Daddy had brought in for the fireplace. Talk about a mother and her two young children clearing out of a room. Once my mother and my sister and I had run (and I do mean run) out of the living room, Daddy dealt with both the fire in the fireplace and the baby snakes slithering around on the floor.

That was the first and last time we had a fire in the fireplace, but we all still enjoyed sitting in the living room looking at the fireplace and its pretty mantel for many years.

 

Yep, wondering if it was used in the fireplaces instead of furnaces.
In the farmhouse where I was raised, we had a whole room in the basement with a coal chute into it where coal was stored. The furnace must have been 4 or 5' in diameter with a lot of 'arms' coming off. We took turns loading / stoking the furnace - what a job. The furnace was installed in the '30s. Until then, fireplaces (in every room) were used. It was considered a great improvement to have radiators!

 

Why in the world I typed "mantle" when meaning a fireplace mantel I don't know.
I must have been more sleepy than I thought last night when I posted that.

 

I grew up in a house that has a small room in the front of the basement that we always heard had been used for coal. But I don't think there is currently a chute for coal to be dumped there. It has a very cellar-like feel, though. My mother still lives there. Now I'm curious and will ask her about it. The house doesn't have any fireplaces currently. We moved there long after any alterations would have been made.

 

Thanks Davey and Anund!!! That is SO AWESOME!!! Anund, you MUST have seen the piece that Chronicle did on the guy in Boston that's gone around the city photographing the multitudes of sewer cover??? Some of them are just SO GORGEOUS!!!!!!! A couple of links:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrEawbIgz2c/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvjvcfrAL6s/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnMaQ-clgJU/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqZ4jzhAL-g/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BohN6ZqAfp8/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvj16yJAX2r/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BvT6_ezAow2/
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvj16yJAX2r/

 

Figtree3, I had an aunt who kept her homemade preserves and jellies in a "root cellar" -- the following description from Wikipedia describes it to a "T" as far as how my aunt used the one at her old house.

"A root cellar is a structure, usually underground or partially underground, used for storage of vegetables, fruits, nuts, or other foods. Wikipedia"

 

Thank you, @yourturntoloveit ! I'll check into that, too.

 

Aquitaine, those manhole covers are fabulous!! I hope nobody ruins them. They are urban art and should be preserved.