On 2009-05-08 20:55:06 +0100, K said:

Sacha writes
On 2009-05-08 08:40:42 +0100, Andrew May said:

There is a little area of my garden in which nothing has ever grown. I
have known for a while that if I dig more than a couple of inches down
I come across bricks. A neighbour tells me that this area used to be a
chrysanthemum farm and I have always assumed that these bricks were the
foundations for a greenhouse of some description. Last weekend I took
the opportunity to dig further with a view to finally getting some
garden that I can grow something in. I now think that what I have is
not the foundations of a greenhouse but am at a loss to explain what it
is.
snip

My Nurserymen husband and stepson (Essex in the past, Devon now) both
say what you have there is a bog garden. In the - er - vernacular.

That was my immediate thought. But if the OP is right in his hunch that
it was built at the same time as the house, isn't 1948 a little late to
be building houses without inside toilets?

It's a triple chamber septic tank, according to Matthew, who reckons
that the nursery that was there was probably built in the days before
mains sewerage was available. Had it been actual loos, it would have
been a block for the nursery workers.
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Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Exotic plants, shrubs & perennials
South Devon