London cellars - specifically Clapham?

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In another thread someone shared a link to property in Clapham and I have browsed the £1,2,3m Victorian villa style properties. I wished I could afford £16k/month mortgage payments, some dreamy property there.

Almost exclusively they have long narrow corridor-like cellars. Is this across London, or specific to Clapham? My experience of cellars in houses in the north is that they are the full width of the house and either a half or full depth of the house.

I want to know more about cellars.

It's a London-wide thing in Victorian terraces. They are coal cellars and usually had a manhole cover next to the front door down which the coal man could tip the coal he delivered. I've seen a lot of London homes and it's rare for the cellar not to run under the hall only.

Gosh I miss my cellar!

Yes it's really common, as pp said, for coal.

I had the ground floor flat in a converted house and my cellar was invaluable. It was slightly damp, but fine to store stuff, I had shelves, my printer was down there, it was SO useful. We're in a boring house now and frequently when I have to open up the loft to get stuff, I wish for the cellar.

The cellar in my childhood London house had an underground stream running by it and it flooded constantly.

Memories of my poor dad up to his thighs in water pumping it out every weekend!

Common to see newts and frogs hopping about down there too! 😳