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?

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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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.

As you say mixeduptoo, it was quite common in the 40's,50's and 60's for families or single people to rent a room in one of the big houses that were around the Sheffield area at that time, I knew of many that did that whilst waiting on the council's housing list.
Mind you, some of the houses to rent in those days were only one up and one down & housed some quite large families, thinking back, it must have been awful for some, especially pensioners, as not many people had TV in those days, so looking at 4 walls everyday must have driven them nuts.
A Jamaican bloke that I worked with many years ago, bought a house on Burngreave Road with his brother, rented every room out, then bought the neighbouring house, I don't think they stopped there, it was a very profitable bussiness in those days.
It was not uncommon for 40 people to share a small house in some suburbs, some even shared beds as they worked different shifts, at least they got to sleep in a warm bed, others slept in sleeping bags, not sure how they went on at the weekends.

when the bombs were overhead my mom put me in the cellar .in a clothes basket with a tin bath over it /no wonder am claustophobic////xxx

I was brought up in Mushroom Lane, Sheffield 3 which was a street of terraced houses, some back-to-back and also some larger houses where families rented off rooms and some lived in cellar kitchens. These cellars opened out onto the gardens/yards (they weren't just a dark cellar with a hole in the ceiling for coal to drop through!) and presumably in more affluent times were used as washrooms etc by maybe servants.

Was there more than one Mushroom Lane?
The one I am familiar with runs beside the Museum.
If you are ever in this area look at the brick wall that holds back the grounds of the Museum
Truly a work of art

Mushroom Lane does run between the two parks from the museum down to the main road, but then continues across and used to go right down to what we used to call the 'olla' (hollow.) Winter Street hospital is on the corner and there were terraced houses all the way down with about four little corner shops - oh them were t'days!

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.

:hihi:Eey by gum,you musta bin posh t'av cellar,when i worra lad we lived under neighbours dustbin lid an oped summday we could upgrade t'an oyle.mind we were'nt to bad off,at least wi lived next t' bin and cud av a few scraps...../eyup owd pal ow are ye/....:wave:

My mom and dad an 'us 14 kids were on t'Council waitin' list for ovver 26 years befoor they gie us a cellar to live in.

We used to live in an owld telephone box near t'Midland Station. I'll nivver forget them train whistles keepin' us awake at neet. An' them bloody nuisances wantin' to use t' phone were a pain in t' backside an ' all. In fact I've still GOT bruises in me backside to this day !
[ Photographs available on request ].

:hihi:Midland station! ,telephone box!,...yer mean y'actually ad ouse wi windows an a door that oppened,all them visitors,all them kids t'keep yer warm yer own central 'eatin' system,an a telephone t boot,ad never sin one til a were a teenager!we were only up rooad from yore jus pas Rutland n'all,yer musta bin posher than t'other bloke who lived in an'oyle:hihi: