In the 18th century this room was formerly a central service hall that gave access to most parts of the house, including a flight of service stairs leading to the first and second floors, Sir Thomas Stepney's Study, a low basement or cellar and access to the far eastern building now occupied by the West Credit Union. As such this room was, in the 18th century, a busy thoroughfare. In the mid- to late 19th century however, when the wine merchants the Margrave Brothers occupied the former Sir Thomas Stepney's Study, as an office, they inserted a red brick cellar below the hall with a number of brick built bays with vaulted ceilings to display and store a selection of their quality wines. However, the 19th-century ground-work for the insertion of this Victorian cellar happened to puncture through the floor of an existing 18th-century low basement room and as a consequence also excavated down to the alluvial gravels, which has had fairly dire consequences over the years with problems of flooding and slight subsidence.