Forgot the pics! Here ya go.

36” wide and it’s fairly close to the right wall. I guess it “could” work but I know I’d certainly wouldn’t be able to move very easily down there. The ground here is loaded with rocks and boulders too...seems it’s be a feat to get down that deep here in the mountainous area.

I thought it must be for servicing, but you're right, it does seem too close to the wall. My father had a similar hole in a garage one time and found it was ideal for storing wine. Dead bodies too I expect.

Air raid shelter???

Maybe a bomb shelter from the cold war era? If the garage were built around that time, that might have been a logical place to put one.

Oooo, bomb shelter is plausible. Such a weird size of it was meant to be an entry for a human...

In 10 years I have never started digging. Maybe it’s time.

My first thought was root cellar.

Are root cellars more shallow? As-in, you don’t walk down into them? All I can think of are the cellars like my grandparents had in NE. They had a huge hatch door from the outside of the house and walked down a little stairway. Maybe 5-6’ deep.

Steve - that was what I was thinking, just couldn't remember the name for it so air raid shelter was the closest I could think of. Maybe it's a DIY that the hatch was removed and the garage built around it?

Ha, that’s a thought Raye! It is a structure made of the local boulders fit together...it was actually 1908 when the house was built then the garage in 1930’s.

I need an entirely new driveway and maybe I’ll have the whole floor of the garage ripped-up and replaced too. Just to see what’s under there.

I was wondering if maybe it was an old heating oil tank but why so far from the house and impossible to fill. The garage is about 30 yards from the house.