History Under Our Feet: The Airey And The Coal Hole
- Q&Q Publishing
- 12 hours ago
- 4 min read
By Lucy C. Milton, author of A Maid of No Consequence
When crafting a story where fiction and history meet, the phrase “writing what you know” can sneak up on you when you least expect it. Writing about what you don’t know deserves serious research time.
In my book, there is a pivotal moment where Darcy and Elizabeth meet unexpectedly, and to write it, I needed to learn more about life below stairs—specifically, about the areas around the servants’ below-ground entrance and coal delivery at street level.
The front of Georgian-era terrace houses included a gated staircase to one side, leading down to small courtyard. This was the servants’ domain. Called ‘the airey’ (later referred to as the ‘area’), it was connected to the kitchen as well as the scullery. Here, servants were busy, fetching water or cleaning muddied boots. But this convenient lightwell between the street and the cellar below also provided servants a short respite from the sweltering kitchens and scullery, as well as providing them a look at the small slice of London life happening above.
Local merchants made deliveries to the servant’s entrance, keeping strong aromas—such as the smell of the fishmonger’s goods—from reaching the elegant front steps. But one of the noisiest and messiest deliveries took place aboveground: coal, which was used to heat homes in London from the early nineteenth century through to the mid twentieth century and was not entirely phased out until after the Clean Air Act of 1956.
Many of these terraced houses had a vaulted coal cellar under the pavement accessed from the area or under the house steps. The coal hole and chute proved a convenient system, minimizing the distance the sacks of coal needed to be carried and ensuring that sooty sacks and delivery men need not enter the house. sacks lifted off of a delivery wagon were tipped through a small coal hole in the pavement or steps into the cellar or coal store below. These mostly circular openings, usually around 12 to 14 inches or 30 to 36 centimeters in diameter, were deliberately designed to be too small for a person to pass through. They were closed off by a cast-iron cover, usually with a raised pattern or lettering to make them less slippery in wet weather. Some coal-hole covers had ventilation holes, as it was thought at one time that damp coal gave off dangerous fumes. Others were inlaid with glass (sometimes in the form of prisms) to light the vault below. An internal latch prevented the cover being lifted from the outside.
Coal-hole covers differ in design, depending on the ironworks company which created them, which can be identified by the stamp of an ironmonger’s badge, or name of the foundry and, at times, an address. Some covers were quite ornate, many have geometric patterns—mostly circles—and some include ventilation holes. Many have raised designs, which like the stamped lettering, prevents slipping when the pavement is wet.
The covers, also called plates or hatches, were almost uniformly round, chiefly because a circular disc cannot accidentally fall through its own hole (unlike a square or rectangular one) and because of its heavy weight, can be more easily rolled rather than lifted and carried.
There was not a standard look to the lids; on some streets there are a variety of types of cover, reflecting the fact that the coal holes were installed at different times by different builders after the houses were constructed. Even two years before the Clean Air Act banned coal as a heating option, coal-hole covers were still offered for sale in 1954 by one of the more prolific names stamped on manhole covers, A. C. Woodrow & Co.
Today there are covers still sitting in their original paving stone, while others have been reset in modern paving materials. These lids are at risk of being taken up, stolen, damaged, or buried under asphalt or concrete, but an appreciation for their singularity of purpose and design has built affection and admiration for them.
In fact, coal-hole covers, or opercula—the more formal term, from the Latin word for covering or lid—have become collected works of art, and their unique function and design has created a fanbase of ‘operculists’. Among the earliest was Dr. Shepherd Taylor, who in 1863 drew a collection of coal-hole covers and their designs, which was published in a pamphlet. A century later, Victor Musgrove, a British artist and poet, began collecting vintage coal-hole covers no longer in use, hanging them on his walls as if they were works of art and exhibiting them in his Soho gallery. Artist Lily Goddard started making rubbings from coal holes in the 1970s, ten of which are now owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum and can be seen online. Perhaps best known among modern enthusiasts for coal-hole and utility covers is Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labour Party, who photographs them with his cellphone.
If you have the chance to walk past a Georgian terraced home in London, take a moment to look down at the sidewalk. You may catch sight of a coal-hole cover from days gone by. And if you see one of those pricey gated flats below street level? Imagine the hustle and bustle of Regency-era servants making their way through the area, hauling coal into the home to keep their employers and themselves warm.
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References
Illustrations (all public domain):
The Coal Scuttle, circa 1790, Hulton Archive
Faded London
Wikimedia Images
Institute of Historic Building Conservation, Rob Cowan
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