Undercroft

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Undercroft at Blakeney Guildhall in Norfolk

An undercroft is a cellar or underground room, often brick-lined and vaulted, and used for storage in buildings since medieval times. While some were used as simple storerooms, others were rented out as shops. For example, the undercroft rooms at Myres Castle in Scotland circa 1300 were used as the medieval kitchen and a range of stores. Many of these early medieval undercrofts were vaulted or groined, such as the vaulted chamber at Beverston Castle or the groined stores at Myres Castle.

The term is sometimes used to describe a crypt beneath a church, used for burial purposes. For example, there is a 14th century undercroft or crypt extant at Muchalls Castle in Scotland, even though the original chapel above it was destroyed in an act of war in 1746.

Undercrofts were commonly built in England and Scotland throughout the 13th and early 14th centuries. They occur in cities such as London, Chester and Southampton. The undercroft beneath the Houses of Parliament in London was rented out to the conspirators behind the Gunpowder Plot.

A modern use of the term is to describe the rooms alongside swimming pool tanks, below ground level, that carry filtration services and the like.

In modern apartment block housing developments, undercroft is used to describe the underground car parking that often occupies the footprint of the building (and sometimes extends to other service or garden areas around the development.