Spence Root Cellar, Exterior Door Open, Brigus

• Main Authors: Pomeroy, Julie, Braye, Crystal, Shawyer, Jo
• Format: Still Image
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Migration/settlement; Objects; Architecture; building and construction; Buildings; Outbuildings; Root cellars; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/ref/collection/ich_nature/id/678

Root Cellar owned by Marcia Spence on Cemetery Road in Brigus. It was believed to have been built in the mid 1800’s by Sandy Roberts, and was used for vegetable storage up to the 1960’s. Today it is collapsed inside due to excavating that was done for a housing development behind the Spence property. The cellar is a stone wall structure that is built into a hillside and mounded with rock on two sides with a beautiful rock wall in the front. It originally had an interior and exterior door with a stone wall thickness between the doors of 2 meters. Originally there was a barn attached to the front of the cellar which was also attached to the back of the house. The only entry to the cellar was from the inside of the house, through the barn. There have been no renovations to the cellar expect for the removal of the barn, and the crumbling of the back wall. The original Roberts family farmed potatoes and other vegetables as subsistence farming and fished in Labrador.