Hi,

We are considering restoring our basement, which is completely filled with rubble. The building is a three-story victorian brick building in East London built in 1890 that were offices for a former brewery.

We can see the tops of some arches when we peer through the floorboards and the big mystery to me is how tall the ceilings will be, because I think this will be the key to whether we can make it a good space or not!

We've figured out that there is at least 2.3 meters of head-height, but its very difficult to tell with all the rubble which is completely filled to the brim. I'm really hoping that there is significantly more ceiling height in the space. The ground floor of the building has really high ceilings - 3 meters from floor to ceiling, with an additional meter of ceiling height above that.

This is a big mystery to us, and while we're really keen to restore the basement, I'd love to know what people think, particularly if you have related experience.

*Would an arch like this be structural, or decorative? Would this arch suggest that the basement was designed to be a habitable space?

*Why would the rubble fill the basement? We think it might be filled with rubble from other housing construction over the past century, but it seems amazing to me that it could be filled several meters high.

Just curious what people's thoughts are!

Thanks so much!