Living in cellars

[redruby]

I remember my great grandad saying he remembered that cellars were lived in by the poorest when he was young. Does anyone know if this used to be common in sheffield?

[redruby]

I remember my great grandad saying he remembered that cellars were lived in by the poorest when he was young. Does anyone know if this used to be common in sheffield?

[cat631]

Cellars, poorest.....yer must be jokin'. When I warra lad we were too poor t' live in a cellar, we lived in an oyle UNDER t' cellar an' thowt we were lucky.

[Guest pegmosaic]

where used to work, horses were kept in the celler!!

[skippy]

In the 60's, many houses had immigrants living in every room in the house, when I was a coalman, we tipped coal down a cellar grate in Tinsley, there was a lot of yelling going on, then some immigrants came out and abused us, they were sleeping in the cellar & we had poured coal on them, we had got the wrong address, ha ha.

[only_me]

I was told years ago of some houses being so overcrowded with immigrant workers that they would sleep in shifts. I would imagine if that were true then the celler could have been used as a room/bedroom.

[redruby]

I don't know about in sheffield but in wales you would have been lucky to live in cellar in the 1930's, families were sheds and tents

http://www.garethjones.org/unemployment/unemployment_8.htm

[soft ayperth]

I don't know abt living in them, but I do know that during WW2 the cellars in many of the homes on the street where my grandparents lived, Talbot Place, were connected and my grandparents' cellar functioned as an air raid shelter. As a baby I was hustled down there on many an occasion, so I was told.

[willman]

threads merged

[mixeduptoo]

Yes, it was fairly common especially where larger old houses were rented out. My childhood years were spent living in a cellar kitchen and sleeping in an attic bedroom. For many young couples starting married life this was the only alternative when social housing was hard to come by and buying was out of the question. In the area we lived there were other families who shared houses in this way.

The house we lived in had four floors. My grandmother and uncle lived on the ground floor and first floor, my mum and dad had the cellar kitchen and attic bedrooms. I was 11 years old when my parents finally got their own house.