Strange as it may seem to young people, houses with central
heating are a relatively recent phenomenon.
I grew up in a house built in the 1950s; even at such a recent date, outside
the back door was a coal-shed integrated into the house, and every so often a
lorry loaded with sacks of coal would arrive to deliver fuel for the open fires
and anthracite for the kitchen range.
One pair of grandparents, in an older house, had a coal-cellar, reached
by a flight of steps from the garden.
The other grandparents, in a more modest property, had a coal-bunker
outside the back door. By the time I left home, central heating and
electric fires had replaced the dependence on coal; the coal-cellar and
coal-shed had become store-rooms, the bunker had been taken away in
pieces.
Scattered around St Leonard’s there are, I am sure, similar
reminders of the use of coal in our homes.
Some people still buy coal, but few need deliveries measured in
hundredweights as the earlier generations did.
So the storage spaces have disappeared or found alternative uses,
laundry rooms, a place for garden tools, and so on. Such reminders of the past are on private
land, we are not aware of the changes in other people’s homes.
Of course, house chimneys are a permanent reminder of an age
of open fires, and I wrote about them in an earlier issue. But at ground level, there is one kind of
public and visible reminder of how we used to use and store coal. And that is the coal-hole cover. If a house boasted a coal-cellar then it
needed a way of filling that cellar. The
family could access their fuel from inside, but they did not want dusty
tradesmen traipsing through the front door to deliver a dirty, coal-encrusted
sack. The solution was a chute, large
enough for the fuel, but small enough to prevent intruders entering the
property. And the chute needed a cover,
usually a heavy cast-iron circular cover, set into the pavement outside the
property or into the garden paving around the house.
There are still a few coal-hole covers in pavements to be
found in the neighbourhood. Many will
have been lost over the years as houses are altered and pavements
resurfaced. I have only found a handful,
in Colleton Crescent and Matford Lane, or between us and the city centre, in
Southernhay. If you are passing, take a
look at the attractive designs on these utilitarian pieces of ironwork.
 |
| Circular coal-hole cover in Matford Lane |
Friends in the older parts of the
neighbourhood tell me that there were examples outside their front doors, in
shallow front gardens; but those front gardens are now parking spaces for cars,
and the pieces of ironwork have been thrown away – though one at least has been
retained for decoration and is visible in Wonford Road.
 |
| Rectangular and circular covers in Colleton Crescent |
Bloggers in
London and
Cheltenham (and elsewhere) have
recorded the coal-hole covers in their cities, with pictures.
Are there any other surviving coal-hole covers locally? This is an open-ended article; I would be
delighted to get further information about this topic.
Keywords: St Leonards, Exeter, history, geography, beauty
coal-holes
