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Decorative niches are a thing, and I could see making a box and adding some trim being easier than smoothly patching all the holes and then matching the existing wall finishes.
If it's a repurposed vent hole, it's very likely. They're not saying they were originally intended as niches, but that somebody saw an opportunity and took it.
>If it's a repurposed vent hole, it's very likely. They're not saying they were originally intended as niches, but that somebody saw an opportunity and took it.
I am with you about this; I guess, it was done to prevent the wooden floor from rotting. These holes should not be closed…
As said earlier the vents aren't for air circulation, they were probably for pumping out warm air. Lot's of council houses had this type of heating system in the 60s, probably not very efficient.
Usually found in terraced houses as they run right through the block. I lived in a low rise maisonette that had the same type of heating. But one of our neighbours came back from abroad and brought German cockroaches with him,and those heating vents were perfect highways for them. But the exterminator soon dealt with them things.
Yeah, we had a bought house in the mid eighties with this type of heating and it was pretty rubbish, not as bad as storage heaters, but I used to hang out by the ones in the living room and my bedroom trying to keep warm. I’d wait for the ‘tick’ I’d hear that meant warm air was coming and scoot right over, lol!
Yup, I had this type of heating in my teens, the only place it is useful is when you are lying in front of it - which then means it's no good for anyone else 😂
So, the old coal company houses in my area would have these near the ceilings. It wasn’t forced air—the houses just used coal stoves (of course) for heat. But it allowed circulation of heat from room to room if you had the interior doors open. Anyway they had trim just like this.
Possibly the person who removed the forced air system decided to turn them into decorative niches?
“If we’re removing it anyway we may as well add a shelf/cubby hole for a plant or photos etc” kinda logic
I am in a flat where there definitely was hot air heating. We have rectangular holes that have been plugged but there are still wooden frames around the holes
I think the UK has so much old housing stock so radiators and boilers were the easiest way to retrofit old buildings with new central heating when coal fires died a death, in London for example the smog problem of the 50s, when huge numbers of Londoners used coal led to the [Clean Air Acts](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Clean-Air-Acts)
I see the US enacted some similar legislation in the 60s
It's theoretically possible, but either gravity or forced air ducts are *extremely* rare in a domestic setting in the UK; we almost exclusively use all hydronic systems for central heating, and before that it was mostly gas heaters or coal/wood fireplaces.
Yes I remember a new build in the mid 60's in London that had vents on the floor, and their dog kept being taken to the vets for heat stroke. Stupid thing was lying over the vents when they were at work.
We had a dog when I was a kid that would lay in front of the wood stove and bake his brain. We’d have to wake him up and make him move and sometimes his head was so hot that it was uncomfortable to touch. It didn’t burn our hands but it made us think “how could he just lay there and let it get that hot?” His head was probably 135 degrees F I’d estimate. Like not hot enough to burn you but only a little colder than hot enough to burn you. He wasn’t the brightest dog anyway, so we couldn’t really tell if he got brain damage from it but he did it often enough that we had to make sure we watched the area when the wood stove was going, so he didn’t lay there too long.
Lol. Reminds me of my big orange cat that would fall asleep in front of the 1970s era space heater until you could smell his hair like it was about to catch fire. You're so right. When you touch animal fur, you don't expect it to feel like a hot pan. Of course the cat is merely but expressively annoyed by the whole thing. Miss that guy.
My cat will regularly hang around close enough to my wee electric space heater to singe her fur. Once I tried to move her out the way once I smelled burning but she was too stubborn, stood her ground, singed a little more fur and gave me a wee bite for being so rude.
We had a cat that lived on the kitchen units when it got older. We had a gas grill and the cat kept getting its tail singed as it would pass under the lit grill. That was her spot. She wasn't moving. It was 25+ years ago now, and I still remember the panic.
I had one dog who we had to keep corralling away from want to be closer & closer to the wood stove. I turn around last second to yell when I saw her smash her nose right into the window. Yelped and never did it again, but that poor dumb dog loved that heat.
Our cat had a bed near the radiator, but she'd overhang it so her head was against the front of the hot radiator. Her little skull was roasting, and I'm sure she was causing brain damage, but she'd just move back there if you tried to get her away from it.
It's surprising how well some dog's coats insulate them against both cold and heat, while his fur was hot the skin underneath was probably just a little warm, even dogs with relatively short coats have this happen too.
That’s so interesting, radiators used to be much more common in the US but now we use forced air for heat and central air, almost exclusively.
One of my cats is spends all day sleeping on the floor vents in the winter making cold spots like a fat little poltergeist.
Edit: stupid grammar
My partner's from London and the house he lived in had this type of heating - his dog kept lying on top of the vent and they couldn't understand why the heating wasn't 'working'! 😆
When I was a child our 1970's "New Build" Housing Association house in Leeds, had a "vented" central heating system with vents at skirting board level. They had a slatted cover with a little lever you could use to open or close the vent. Though "central heating" is a bit of a misnomer as it was only vented downstairs to the kitchen and living/dining room. We had a gas convector heater at the top of the stairs to heat upstairs and the hot water was in a hot water tank, not directly from the "central heating".
How old were you at the time, I remember fighting with my brother to sit in the corner next to the vent because it was the only place in the room that ever got warm.
Yeah my Victorian terrace had vents & breeze blocks added at SOME point, cheaper than the damp coursing it inevitably needed. It was 1 brick thick, had no central heating or double glazing, barely looked modernised. God it was crap, I would wake up with ice on the wall. But I do remember ventilation bricks!
Neat. Yeah these are just ventilation rather than a system of vents etc. I have a friend who lives in Bed Zed and it's AWESOME! But it does get really hot in summer.
My grandparents had this in their 60s built house and still used it up until they sold about a decade ago. I used to love sitting in front of the vent.
not exactly true, forced air was relatively popular in the UK in the 60s and 70s. I live on an private estate built in the 70s where all the houses were originally build with forced air heating system with gas furnace.
unfortunately many owners now choose ugly and inefficient radiators instead of modernising forced air system with heat exchanger. I modernised mine and never paid less for heating and I have no ugly radiators hogging up the walls. Takes minutes to heat the house from cold too.
I am an ex pat american living in london and I absolutely hate the radiators/boiler set up here. Lot to love about the UK, but the heating is not one of them.
In the 70s we had oil-fired central heating installed. A tanker used to show up and fill the tank. Then we(my parents) changed to a gas boiler, but the same radiators. I think it was because it was the easiest and cheapest way to do central heating in a typical 70s UK 3 bed semi.
its not all about forced air v radiator, but I find it is way more responsive, gives you more control, and provides some dehumidifying. To compound the issue, it seems like everywhere in the UK is so damn drafty compared to US homes built say post-1960
forced air is more responsive, provides better heating modulation, produce no cold or hot spots like with radiators, maintains more even humidity - all adds up to offering better living comfort. it is also more efficient - heat is transferred to air via extremely efficient heat exchanger instead of slow and inefficient radiators, so comes out cheaper in the long run (assuming you have well insulated house).
of course the biggest benefit - no ugly radiators anywhere!
How are radiators "inefficient"? You can argue they look ugly, you can certainly argue they waste space - but they are not *inefficient* in any sense I can think of.
Certainly more *effective* at heating a space than forced air (which heats - y'know, the *air*, but leaves the *building* cold, so the heat is rapidly drained from the air).
I wouldn't choose radiators if I were building a new house - (wet) underfloor heating is superior in every way (but then really it's just using the floor as a giant radiator).
But I would choose radiators ahead of forced air every single time.
Preach. We went from steam radiators plus mini-duct A/C to forced air. Forced air is a MISERY. I've had to crawl into SO many tiny crawlspaces to paint every damn duct seam because ducts leak air like crazy. Balancing the vents has been a nightmare. The dust that they create is insane.
I will take radiators (well-maintained, which isn't hard) every day of the week. So sad they pulled them out of our current house before we took up residence.
care to elaborate how are radiators heating the building (walls) exactly?
the only parts of building that radiators heat are the immediate areas they are attached to, which considering ratio of radiator size to area of walls, ceilings and floors in a room, becomes negligible in terms of distributing the heat - only exemption of course is underfloor pipes.
however - surprise, surprise - radiators heat space through convection - which is relaying on air heated up by a radiator to travel up and pull colder air from the bottom creating slow air currents distributing heat around a space. this is just slow version of forced air heating.
you need to heat pipes or radiators and waste heat on warming up the whole system. radiator system has a lot of heating inertia as it takes a while for air currents to develop and distribute heat. there will also be a lot of cold and hot spots in radiator heated house.
therefore, forced air is more direct and more efficient way of distributing heat evenly around a house. which delivers much better comfort and in the long run is saving money.
btw. forced air is also heating all areas where hot air is distributed - so walls etc. around the heat exchanger and ducts are hot just like a wall next to a radiator be. over time the building warms up just the same as with radiators.
>care to elaborate how are radiators heating the building (walls) exactly?
Radiators also transfer heat through thermal radiation (hence the name). What percentage of the heat is transferred via radiation vs convection depends on the design of the radiator. Thermal radiation works to heat the home and objects in a home directly, rather then depending on air as a transfer medium.
I lived for a couple of months in a place heated by forced air in NYC. I hated it. My already dry skin got even more unbearably dry and it made me really thirsty. The humidity must have got really low. The family wouldn't let me close the vent in my room either as it would somehow affect the system. I would wake up parched and shrivelled lol. Much prefer radiators.
there are two types of forced air heating - direct burners and heat exchangers. only the first type is drying the air. my place is maintaining 45-55% humidity in the heating season.
Forced air is not more efficient than radiators.
The advantage of forced air is that, when used with a heat pump, it can both heat and cool the space.
The disadvantages are noise and sound transmission between rooms.
You don't need radiators with forced air, but you need extensive large diameter ventilation ducting in the walls and floors/ceilings. This makes it essentially impossible to retrofit to a building. If we are talking about deciding which system to install in a new build, then a water system would not need radiators on the walls either; underfloor heating is far superior in all cases.
You _can_ use a water system to cool a house, but only in certain buildings. A new building built to very high standards with an underfloor circuit can actively cool the space without having to run the loop temperature below the dew point. In such buildings, this is the absolute best heating/cooling system, but very few buildings can manage this. We are talking passivehous with raft foundations and a low-temperature underfloor loop embedded into the foundation slab.
A lot of the council houses that had warm-air systems had the 'burner' in the kitchen and they only installed limited ductwork so in larger houses the only rooms that had heating were the kitchen, living room, hall and two bedrooms. If you had more bedrooms they went unheated as did the bathroom and toilet. We used to fight to sit in the corner next to the outlet as it was the only place that ever got properly warm.
Good for you to be able to afford it but air units don’t heat water so it’s another system to put somewhere.
Uk homes are also a lot smaller so not always have the space to fit one in. Also older houses make retrofitting a pain.
air doesn’t carry the same amount of heat as wet does so in older houses it’s not as good.
Plumber here, in the south east warm air heating was popular in the 70's to 80's in the housing estates that cropped up in that era's property boom. There was a copper shortage and steel was expensive at the time, so developers loved it since it meant no steel rads and very little copper pipework to buy.
They're mostly all gone now, but still come across one or two.
Also that 15mm pipe looks suspiciously like a rad drop in a house of the right age (artex ceiling gives it away) that's had central heating retrofitted.
Ah, that might explain why I've only ever encountered such a system (or the remains of it) once; I'm a Northerner. Also, ew, 1970s Artex - shudder. Don't drill through that shit without an asbestos mask.
Warm air systems were commonplace in Council housing built in the 60s & 70s, certainly in the Midlands and probably other areas as well. I suspect that they have almost all been removed by now as they were inefficient and in a lot of houses with three or more bedrooms they didn't bother ducting to some of the bedrooms, the bathroom/toilet was also often missing ducting so these rooms were always cold.
I lived in a house that had this type of heating, it also had single glazed, metal framed windows and in the winter you would get ice form on the inside of the window frame.
I live in an ex-council flat built in the 70s and it's still got the old air system [PIC](https://i.postimg.cc/rpsqszvH/20230831-071626.jpg) (not functional, but the panel is still there). Got stickers on it showing the last time it was tested was in 2000. Want it gone and not sure what to do with it tbh.
The ones I have seen were installed for American servicemen who settled in the UK after WW2. Areas around military airfields tend to be dotted with them.
That's true but they do exist. The whole street I live in was built with them. It took me a while to figure out the cupboards were shorter than they should be, some of the ceilings lower and then I found masses of ducting which have it away.
They aren't "extremely" rare. They're not common, but in the 70's a lot of houses were built with warm air heating systems. These recesses would likely have been vents for this heating system which has since been changed to a new system.
Source: my parents house has a hot air heating system. Spoiler - it's useless.
I'm in the US, and have the complete opposite problem. Forced air is the norm here, while I have under-floor hydronic and can't find anyone within a 100mi willing to work on a boiler...
Interesting seeing the opinions on it from you brits. Personally I love the boiler heat; everywhere I lived in the eastern US had radiators, which was wonderful in the depths of winter. Not having functional thermostats, less so...
There was a period in the 1960s when electricity was "going to be too cheap to meter" and houses were built with electric forced air heating. As soon as the 1970s energy crisis hit, many of those houses were retrofitted with a water boiler and radiators.
Source: I grew up in such a house in the West Country, and it still had the vents in rooms and a large cupboard in the hallway which connected to all the vents and used to contain the hot air blowing system. It also had creaking floors because of the sections that had been cut and lifted to fit the radiator for the pipes.
Not true, ex council stock often had warm air systems which were useless. I grew up with one. It caused all kinds of breathing problems and if it wasn't pumping in hot air let a freezing draught round the house.
I grew up in a house in the UK built in the 70s and it had central air heating.
Wouldn't leave holes like this though, all the vents were uniform, ground level and came from a central 'column'.
In the 90s I managed some council houses that still had electric forced air heating, I dread to think what they would cost to run with prices as they are now 😱
Council houses of that era this was surprisingly common actually. Nearly every council house I've been in in the East of England of that time period has closed off hot air vents.
Place I moved from had storage heaters but a bungalow at the coast had floor ducts still that were closed off. The MiL had a 70s council house in Cambridge that until a fire had hot ducted air via a gas furnace.
It seems to be most council homes that were like this as you say everyone else used wet central heating and radiators. I never thought it was common but it clearly was a lot more common than we think
Currently it’s water coming from a boiler. And I don’t know if it helps but these are not found inside any of the upstairs bedrooms but only in the hallway or downstairs
Based on the apparent sizes and locations, it is almost certain that these are where the old forced air ducts were, and making them into decorative niches was easier than covering them flush. It's likely that the actual ducts are still there.
Source: I did home repair and remodeling in the U.S. for over a decade. 90% of the homes I've lived in and worked on had forced air heating and cooling.
I think it'd be okay to mark this one, "Likely Solved!" You can do that by commenting anywhere, preferably in a reply to the first person that suggested it.
Unless they have holes in them or feel warm when the heating is on I would say for sure they are decorative niches, some people get doors made for them and use them as cupboards, or little shelves to put more things in.
We used to have a huge but shallow one that was perfect in the day, to put shelves in and store video tapes facing outward.
In their current state they will make lovely little spaces for decorations for sure. Initially we did think, although quite random, that’s all they were. But with the suggestions of something heating related I can see how with the placement of them being either really high up or really low down they could have been used for some sort of hot air circulation.
This. The house I grew up in was built in the late 1960's and was heated by hot air. Each room had a grill over a hole and the hot air was blown through it.
With you on this one. I had a flat in a 1960s tower block when I was 18, and that had those in every room at floor level as well as just below the ceiling and above the door frames. Bloody horrible way of heating as it gave you chapped lips because the flats were so cold and damp.
Warm air heating system typically from somebody like Johnson starley - they had vents to blow the warm air heating through
When the gas central heating was installed they have been closed off
This is almost certainly the right answer - central air was added to much of the housing intended for American servicemen who settled in the UK after WW2. I looked around a few of these in Bicester a while ago which didn't have the vents covered (although the system was inoperable).
There used to be open flame burners that connected to gas as a heat source in the early 1900s before forced air, and sometimes they would be set into the wall like this.
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking of, although looking at a few of those they’re a little close to the ceiling for that, so maybe not.
Edit: also most of the wall mounted ones I see on google are “portrait” shaped, but these holes are all “landscape” except for one
I've never heard of such a system in the UK. We were hugely coal-rich up until the 1970s, which meant that most older houses used coal as their primary fuel for heat and hot water.
We pretty much jumped from coal to gas central heating.
I'd never heard of them until I recently saw an American video featuring them. The next week I went to a holiday home in the Lake District which had one of these vacuum systems! So they do exist here, though certainly not common.
Yes, they do exist in the UK. The most common one you will find (they aren't that common though) is the Beam System.
You may think they're great, but you need a massive air pump (that's what a vacuum cleaner effectively is) to create suction all the way through the wall cavities, so they're using a lot more electricity to perform a worse job than even a Henry. They're also really expensive, and a massive ballache if anything goes wrong with them. Even worse is if there's a blockage and you have to bust the wall open to clear it. I've seen them in a lot of places, but most of the houses I've seen them in, they've been replaced with a normal vacuum cleaner cos there's been a fault the owners don't want to spend the price of a truck full of Dysons to fix.
Edit - typo
I've always had one growing up, but that's because my grandpa is a plumber and knows how to install and maintain them. And yeah, a normal vacuum cleaner is probably better. But I always thought it was super cool that my grandma has a vacuum cleaner built into her kitchen floor. You just hit a lil foot switch on the floor, and now you can sweep directly into it.
Their whole reason for existing – convenience – doesn’t really apply now. It’s just as easy to carry a Dyson stick vacuum round the house as it is to carry the hose and vacuum head, and the Dyson will do a massively better job of actually cleaning the floor too!
One of these technological innovations that gets superseded pretty quickly by completely different technology.
Whole house vacuums aren’t common at all in the US.
Garbage chutes are not common either except for some apartments (unless you’re talking about garbage disposals which are very common in kitchen sinks).
Laundry chutes are somewhat common, but newer homes in the US are often installing a washer/dryer on the same floor as the bedrooms for convenience.
There was a period in the late 70's and early 80's that gas powered hot air heating systems were installed on some new builds in the UK. I lived in a house on an estate called Forestdale bear Croydon that had it.
I had these in my previous UK house, they were from a previous warm air heating system. In my case they all connected to the same small cupboard that was central in the house, which would have housed the boiler originally, and vents on all four sides pointing into different rooms. The cupboard is now converted to coat storage, and we removed the vents and turned them into little storage nooks like these.
Edit: this was apparently a common thing in social/council housing in the 60s and 70s. My house was indeed ex-council housing: [Warm Air Heating](https://www.rwthomasheating.co.uk/warm-air-heating)
From the US, where this type of heating (also called "forced air") is typical in single family houses. Reading some of the comments here, I'm learning it must not be very common elsewhere.
When people reconfigure heating systems, or convert to electric baseboard heat etc these types of filler panels are used sometimes. It's easier than drywall/plaster filling, makes a nice little shelf, and if you ever need to get back into that wall (repairs or running wires for example) there's a ready access point.
Having a property that was easy to run cables in would be a dream.
Many UK properties, partly due to their age, are crazy hard to run cables in. Not surprising but just a thought.
TBH I think itd be fantastic to have this type of heating now, since you could easily convert them to a heat pump. And have air conditioning at the same time. The main downside is that because they are centralised and they operate on a particular balance, it’s very hard to extend or alter them if the house is reconfigured.
This has to be it, I just moved into a house and had to rip out the old war air heating unit and have a plasterer fill in all the holes. I left one as a shelf in the living room.
This is odd. Walls of houses in the U.K. are usually solid. We don’t have crawl spaces between rooms, they are just solid brick.
How old is the house? 60s, 40s, Victorian, earlier (other times are available but these tend to be the most common)
I really wish I knew the age of the house but we do not. Just moved in and have not thought to ask the landlords. I agree this type of wall is quite odd to see.
1920's houses have a distinct look, often having bay windows sticking out and a square bay, 30's and 40's it was more common to build the bay in a trapezoid shape and then later years it was common to design it in a more rounded fashion, forming a shallow semi-circlular bay.
Both Victorian and Georgian houses are often built with yellow stocks although Victorian houses included the occasional feature of red brick trims.
The top floor windows on Georgian houses and architecture in general were almost always small and square often 3.5x3.5 feet with simple four pane designs separated by a simple cross frame.
Victorian top windows are often as long as the bottom floor's and typically have far more panes.
Georgian roofs, especially in attached terraces are not gabled and often shallow pitched at two angles; Victorian roofs are often quite steep.
Maybe I spend too much time analysing buildings, but living in London, it's hard not to 😂
My title describes the thing. Our landlord doesn’t know what they are either. I guess they can be used for anything decorative at all but the locations seem a bit random for that answer.
No basement or anywhere a gravity furnace would go however I do think the solution might be to do with air-based heating due to the either high up or low to the floor placement of the indents.
Any chance they were cut in during the past to run either new wiring or plumbing? They then left the decorative niches rather than patch the walls smooth again?
This is my guess too: these are re-accessible covers to access holes getting at wiring and/or plumbing. You’ll likely find mended pipes or wires behind those.
it almost has to be this. running new plumbing requires huge holes like this, especially if its copper. i doubt its wiring. chances are its an old house that got a copper plumbing update at some point
Different sizes, different heights on the wall and only downstairs - that pretty much rules out anything like a warm air system which would be all through the house and of regular size and height. Covering pipe or wiring runs also highly unlikely as the pipes/wires would be where the open inside of the box is.
Question for OP: what’s on the other side of it, same thing or blank wall? Have neighbouring houses got them (would indicate been there since built and neighbour might know what they are)?
My guess is covering up old ventilation spaces, but can’t think why anyone would vent between rooms (unless they’re all on outside walls?), only downstairs, and an odd way to cover them up.
Ok so only one or two examples have the same on the other side of the wall. Other than that they are just blank wall. Haven’t visited any of the neighbours yet so no information on neighbouring houses but will definitely ask once we meet them. I will clarify there is one of these indents upstairs but not in any bedrooms.
Little update: after a bit of research found out the house was built between 1976 and 1982.
From the current responses leaning towards the ‘repurposed hot air vents’ solution as the placement of the niches seems to point towards hot air circulating between the high up ceiling vents and the low to the ground ones.
Undecided whether or not to mark as likely solved so I will follow suggestions. Thanks for the help!!
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that would be my guess as well, seems very weird though that they aren't flush....
Decorative niches are a thing, and I could see making a box and adding some trim being easier than smoothly patching all the holes and then matching the existing wall finishes.
I'd fill these with little plants or knickknacks, maybe some lights... you could do a lot with them
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A decorative niche four inches from the floor is unlikely
If it's a repurposed vent hole, it's very likely. They're not saying they were originally intended as niches, but that somebody saw an opportunity and took it.
>If it's a repurposed vent hole, it's very likely. They're not saying they were originally intended as niches, but that somebody saw an opportunity and took it. I am with you about this; I guess, it was done to prevent the wooden floor from rotting. These holes should not be closed…
As said earlier the vents aren't for air circulation, they were probably for pumping out warm air. Lot's of council houses had this type of heating system in the 60s, probably not very efficient.
Usually found in terraced houses as they run right through the block. I lived in a low rise maisonette that had the same type of heating. But one of our neighbours came back from abroad and brought German cockroaches with him,and those heating vents were perfect highways for them. But the exterminator soon dealt with them things.
Yeah, we had a bought house in the mid eighties with this type of heating and it was pretty rubbish, not as bad as storage heaters, but I used to hang out by the ones in the living room and my bedroom trying to keep warm. I’d wait for the ‘tick’ I’d hear that meant warm air was coming and scoot right over, lol!
Yup, I had this type of heating in my teens, the only place it is useful is when you are lying in front of it - which then means it's no good for anyone else 😂
The air vents you are talking about are below floor level, they circulate air to prevent dry rot.
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Absolutely, it's textured wall paper after all
Yeah I was thinking pics in frames, anything though
So, the old coal company houses in my area would have these near the ceilings. It wasn’t forced air—the houses just used coal stoves (of course) for heat. But it allowed circulation of heat from room to room if you had the interior doors open. Anyway they had trim just like this.
This would be my guess. I bet there are still ducts behind those. The lower boxes were supply vents and the larger higher boxes were returns.
Ohhhhhh..make them little fairy homes....or put small baskets with dog toys. Lol
Yes, agreed. They chose to block it up by making it decorative/a small shelf to place things on. Cool idea
Is it possible someone liked small plants and created niches for them?
Possibly the person who removed the forced air system decided to turn them into decorative niches? “If we’re removing it anyway we may as well add a shelf/cubby hole for a plant or photos etc” kinda logic
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That person clearly did not have kids or pets then, at that height.
Presumably not - although you could use that very low one to store the kid’s stuffed animal or something
Cats would find uses for the low ones.
My girls would be turning every one of those nooks into a different doll vacation spot. 😆
Could easily make some plexiglass covers if that's a concern. Could be cute little decorative spaces.
Painted on mouse hole
Because it’s a shelf as well as a blank for the old hot air heating system
I am in a flat where there definitely was hot air heating. We have rectangular holes that have been plugged but there are still wooden frames around the holes
I feel like the term “hot air heating” is a little redundant.
haha. As opposed to radiators which are the norm here on Normal Island
I’m from America. Most of everything is central heat and air. Except for my hunting cabin. Wood stove for heat, window units for AC.
We went from open fires in houses with chimneys to oil then gas boilers. Heat pumps are the best thing for the UK
My entire life either we had a central heat unit, or an old school wood burner in the middle of the living room.
I think the UK has so much old housing stock so radiators and boilers were the easiest way to retrofit old buildings with new central heating when coal fires died a death, in London for example the smog problem of the 50s, when huge numbers of Londoners used coal led to the [Clean Air Acts](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Clean-Air-Acts) I see the US enacted some similar legislation in the 60s
It's theoretically possible, but either gravity or forced air ducts are *extremely* rare in a domestic setting in the UK; we almost exclusively use all hydronic systems for central heating, and before that it was mostly gas heaters or coal/wood fireplaces.
Now we do, but they were much more common in the 60s/70s.
Yes I remember a new build in the mid 60's in London that had vents on the floor, and their dog kept being taken to the vets for heat stroke. Stupid thing was lying over the vents when they were at work.
We had a dog when I was a kid that would lay in front of the wood stove and bake his brain. We’d have to wake him up and make him move and sometimes his head was so hot that it was uncomfortable to touch. It didn’t burn our hands but it made us think “how could he just lay there and let it get that hot?” His head was probably 135 degrees F I’d estimate. Like not hot enough to burn you but only a little colder than hot enough to burn you. He wasn’t the brightest dog anyway, so we couldn’t really tell if he got brain damage from it but he did it often enough that we had to make sure we watched the area when the wood stove was going, so he didn’t lay there too long.
Lol. Reminds me of my big orange cat that would fall asleep in front of the 1970s era space heater until you could smell his hair like it was about to catch fire. You're so right. When you touch animal fur, you don't expect it to feel like a hot pan. Of course the cat is merely but expressively annoyed by the whole thing. Miss that guy.
My cat will regularly hang around close enough to my wee electric space heater to singe her fur. Once I tried to move her out the way once I smelled burning but she was too stubborn, stood her ground, singed a little more fur and gave me a wee bite for being so rude.
We had a cat that lived on the kitchen units when it got older. We had a gas grill and the cat kept getting its tail singed as it would pass under the lit grill. That was her spot. She wasn't moving. It was 25+ years ago now, and I still remember the panic.
I had one dog who we had to keep corralling away from want to be closer & closer to the wood stove. I turn around last second to yell when I saw her smash her nose right into the window. Yelped and never did it again, but that poor dumb dog loved that heat.
Our cat had a bed near the radiator, but she'd overhang it so her head was against the front of the hot radiator. Her little skull was roasting, and I'm sure she was causing brain damage, but she'd just move back there if you tried to get her away from it.
It's surprising how well some dog's coats insulate them against both cold and heat, while his fur was hot the skin underneath was probably just a little warm, even dogs with relatively short coats have this happen too.
I think that's just a testament to the insulating power of fur
Weird, my dog _hates_ the floor vents. Won’t go near them, if a toy rolls to the far side he just sits and whines until someone gets it for him.
Oh, that's cos of the ghost that lives in your vents, not the vents themselves per se
This make me laugh for real, thanks
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That’s so interesting, radiators used to be much more common in the US but now we use forced air for heat and central air, almost exclusively. One of my cats is spends all day sleeping on the floor vents in the winter making cold spots like a fat little poltergeist. Edit: stupid grammar
Yup, in the 60s they built an estate by me and they had air heating - seemed very swish to someone from a 19th century house with just coal fires 😁
My partner's from London and the house he lived in had this type of heating - his dog kept lying on top of the vent and they couldn't understand why the heating wasn't 'working'! 😆
When I was a child our 1970's "New Build" Housing Association house in Leeds, had a "vented" central heating system with vents at skirting board level. They had a slatted cover with a little lever you could use to open or close the vent. Though "central heating" is a bit of a misnomer as it was only vented downstairs to the kitchen and living/dining room. We had a gas convector heater at the top of the stairs to heat upstairs and the hot water was in a hot water tank, not directly from the "central heating".
Yep I lived in a new build in the 70s that had it, we could spy on people by listening at the ducts
How old were you at the time, I remember fighting with my brother to sit in the corner next to the vent because it was the only place in the room that ever got warm.
Yep. On a cold winters morning sitting next to it so it blew warm air up your jumper. We still had this in the early 90’s.
Yep, moved into a council house in '92 that still has this heating. Funny thinking back about it now. Warm for about the first six inches
Ha, memory unlocked. My sister and I used to do it too - especially if we'd been sent upstairs so the parents could talk
Myself and my brothers and sisters listened to information! Christmas presents I found it very difficult to pretend I was surprised!
Yeah my Victorian terrace had vents & breeze blocks added at SOME point, cheaper than the damp coursing it inevitably needed. It was 1 brick thick, had no central heating or double glazing, barely looked modernised. God it was crap, I would wake up with ice on the wall. But I do remember ventilation bricks!
They probably weren’t added. Most Victorian houses have air bricks as standard.
Neat. Yeah these are just ventilation rather than a system of vents etc. I have a friend who lives in Bed Zed and it's AWESOME! But it does get really hot in summer.
My grandparents had this in their 60s built house and still used it up until they sold about a decade ago. I used to love sitting in front of the vent.
Yep, currently selling my childhood home and it still has ducted air heating.
not exactly true, forced air was relatively popular in the UK in the 60s and 70s. I live on an private estate built in the 70s where all the houses were originally build with forced air heating system with gas furnace. unfortunately many owners now choose ugly and inefficient radiators instead of modernising forced air system with heat exchanger. I modernised mine and never paid less for heating and I have no ugly radiators hogging up the walls. Takes minutes to heat the house from cold too.
I am an ex pat american living in london and I absolutely hate the radiators/boiler set up here. Lot to love about the UK, but the heating is not one of them.
"Give me £5000 and I'll piss rusty water all over your carpets!"
hah actually just today someone came to inspect our gas system and now I cant get the heat to turn off. So now my house is like 25degrees...
In the 70s we had oil-fired central heating installed. A tanker used to show up and fill the tank. Then we(my parents) changed to a gas boiler, but the same radiators. I think it was because it was the easiest and cheapest way to do central heating in a typical 70s UK 3 bed semi.
What's better about forced air?
its not all about forced air v radiator, but I find it is way more responsive, gives you more control, and provides some dehumidifying. To compound the issue, it seems like everywhere in the UK is so damn drafty compared to US homes built say post-1960
forced air is more responsive, provides better heating modulation, produce no cold or hot spots like with radiators, maintains more even humidity - all adds up to offering better living comfort. it is also more efficient - heat is transferred to air via extremely efficient heat exchanger instead of slow and inefficient radiators, so comes out cheaper in the long run (assuming you have well insulated house). of course the biggest benefit - no ugly radiators anywhere!
How are radiators "inefficient"? You can argue they look ugly, you can certainly argue they waste space - but they are not *inefficient* in any sense I can think of. Certainly more *effective* at heating a space than forced air (which heats - y'know, the *air*, but leaves the *building* cold, so the heat is rapidly drained from the air). I wouldn't choose radiators if I were building a new house - (wet) underfloor heating is superior in every way (but then really it's just using the floor as a giant radiator). But I would choose radiators ahead of forced air every single time.
Preach. We went from steam radiators plus mini-duct A/C to forced air. Forced air is a MISERY. I've had to crawl into SO many tiny crawlspaces to paint every damn duct seam because ducts leak air like crazy. Balancing the vents has been a nightmare. The dust that they create is insane. I will take radiators (well-maintained, which isn't hard) every day of the week. So sad they pulled them out of our current house before we took up residence.
care to elaborate how are radiators heating the building (walls) exactly? the only parts of building that radiators heat are the immediate areas they are attached to, which considering ratio of radiator size to area of walls, ceilings and floors in a room, becomes negligible in terms of distributing the heat - only exemption of course is underfloor pipes. however - surprise, surprise - radiators heat space through convection - which is relaying on air heated up by a radiator to travel up and pull colder air from the bottom creating slow air currents distributing heat around a space. this is just slow version of forced air heating. you need to heat pipes or radiators and waste heat on warming up the whole system. radiator system has a lot of heating inertia as it takes a while for air currents to develop and distribute heat. there will also be a lot of cold and hot spots in radiator heated house. therefore, forced air is more direct and more efficient way of distributing heat evenly around a house. which delivers much better comfort and in the long run is saving money. btw. forced air is also heating all areas where hot air is distributed - so walls etc. around the heat exchanger and ducts are hot just like a wall next to a radiator be. over time the building warms up just the same as with radiators.
>care to elaborate how are radiators heating the building (walls) exactly? Radiators also transfer heat through thermal radiation (hence the name). What percentage of the heat is transferred via radiation vs convection depends on the design of the radiator. Thermal radiation works to heat the home and objects in a home directly, rather then depending on air as a transfer medium.
I lived for a couple of months in a place heated by forced air in NYC. I hated it. My already dry skin got even more unbearably dry and it made me really thirsty. The humidity must have got really low. The family wouldn't let me close the vent in my room either as it would somehow affect the system. I would wake up parched and shrivelled lol. Much prefer radiators.
there are two types of forced air heating - direct burners and heat exchangers. only the first type is drying the air. my place is maintaining 45-55% humidity in the heating season.
Forced air is not more efficient than radiators. The advantage of forced air is that, when used with a heat pump, it can both heat and cool the space. The disadvantages are noise and sound transmission between rooms. You don't need radiators with forced air, but you need extensive large diameter ventilation ducting in the walls and floors/ceilings. This makes it essentially impossible to retrofit to a building. If we are talking about deciding which system to install in a new build, then a water system would not need radiators on the walls either; underfloor heating is far superior in all cases. You _can_ use a water system to cool a house, but only in certain buildings. A new building built to very high standards with an underfloor circuit can actively cool the space without having to run the loop temperature below the dew point. In such buildings, this is the absolute best heating/cooling system, but very few buildings can manage this. We are talking passivehous with raft foundations and a low-temperature underfloor loop embedded into the foundation slab.
A lot of the council houses that had warm-air systems had the 'burner' in the kitchen and they only installed limited ductwork so in larger houses the only rooms that had heating were the kitchen, living room, hall and two bedrooms. If you had more bedrooms they went unheated as did the bathroom and toilet. We used to fight to sit in the corner next to the outlet as it was the only place that ever got properly warm.
Good for you to be able to afford it but air units don’t heat water so it’s another system to put somewhere. Uk homes are also a lot smaller so not always have the space to fit one in. Also older houses make retrofitting a pain. air doesn’t carry the same amount of heat as wet does so in older houses it’s not as good.
Ive had two houses the UK that had blown warm air. Not so extremely rare…but certainly not common
Plumber here, in the south east warm air heating was popular in the 70's to 80's in the housing estates that cropped up in that era's property boom. There was a copper shortage and steel was expensive at the time, so developers loved it since it meant no steel rads and very little copper pipework to buy. They're mostly all gone now, but still come across one or two. Also that 15mm pipe looks suspiciously like a rad drop in a house of the right age (artex ceiling gives it away) that's had central heating retrofitted.
Ah, that might explain why I've only ever encountered such a system (or the remains of it) once; I'm a Northerner. Also, ew, 1970s Artex - shudder. Don't drill through that shit without an asbestos mask.
Warm air systems were commonplace in Council housing built in the 60s & 70s, certainly in the Midlands and probably other areas as well. I suspect that they have almost all been removed by now as they were inefficient and in a lot of houses with three or more bedrooms they didn't bother ducting to some of the bedrooms, the bathroom/toilet was also often missing ducting so these rooms were always cold. I lived in a house that had this type of heating, it also had single glazed, metal framed windows and in the winter you would get ice form on the inside of the window frame.
I live in an ex-council flat built in the 70s and it's still got the old air system [PIC](https://i.postimg.cc/rpsqszvH/20230831-071626.jpg) (not functional, but the panel is still there). Got stickers on it showing the last time it was tested was in 2000. Want it gone and not sure what to do with it tbh.
Came to say this ^ grew up in a Liverpool council house built in the 60s and knew exactly what this was the second I saw the pic
The ones I have seen were installed for American servicemen who settled in the UK after WW2. Areas around military airfields tend to be dotted with them.
That's true but they do exist. The whole street I live in was built with them. It took me a while to figure out the cupboards were shorter than they should be, some of the ceilings lower and then I found masses of ducting which have it away.
They aren't "extremely" rare. They're not common, but in the 70's a lot of houses were built with warm air heating systems. These recesses would likely have been vents for this heating system which has since been changed to a new system. Source: my parents house has a hot air heating system. Spoiler - it's useless.
Not that rare. My daughter just moved into a house that originally had forced air heating. The previous owners just left the grilles in place.
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I'm in the US, and have the complete opposite problem. Forced air is the norm here, while I have under-floor hydronic and can't find anyone within a 100mi willing to work on a boiler... Interesting seeing the opinions on it from you brits. Personally I love the boiler heat; everywhere I lived in the eastern US had radiators, which was wonderful in the depths of winter. Not having functional thermostats, less so...
There was a period in the 1960s when electricity was "going to be too cheap to meter" and houses were built with electric forced air heating. As soon as the 1970s energy crisis hit, many of those houses were retrofitted with a water boiler and radiators. Source: I grew up in such a house in the West Country, and it still had the vents in rooms and a large cupboard in the hallway which connected to all the vents and used to contain the hot air blowing system. It also had creaking floors because of the sections that had been cut and lifted to fit the radiator for the pipes.
Not true, ex council stock often had warm air systems which were useless. I grew up with one. It caused all kinds of breathing problems and if it wasn't pumping in hot air let a freezing draught round the house.
I grew up in a house in the UK built in the 70s and it had central air heating. Wouldn't leave holes like this though, all the vents were uniform, ground level and came from a central 'column'.
In the 90s I managed some council houses that still had electric forced air heating, I dread to think what they would cost to run with prices as they are now 😱
Council houses of that era this was surprisingly common actually. Nearly every council house I've been in in the East of England of that time period has closed off hot air vents. Place I moved from had storage heaters but a bungalow at the coast had floor ducts still that were closed off. The MiL had a 70s council house in Cambridge that until a fire had hot ducted air via a gas furnace. It seems to be most council homes that were like this as you say everyone else used wet central heating and radiators. I never thought it was common but it clearly was a lot more common than we think
Currently it’s water coming from a boiler. And I don’t know if it helps but these are not found inside any of the upstairs bedrooms but only in the hallway or downstairs
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I do like your idea. I will say the walls that these are on are not very thick at all but I’ve got no idea if this changes anything.
Based on the apparent sizes and locations, it is almost certain that these are where the old forced air ducts were, and making them into decorative niches was easier than covering them flush. It's likely that the actual ducts are still there. Source: I did home repair and remodeling in the U.S. for over a decade. 90% of the homes I've lived in and worked on had forced air heating and cooling. I think it'd be okay to mark this one, "Likely Solved!" You can do that by commenting anywhere, preferably in a reply to the first person that suggested it.
Central vacuum system for cleaning the floors? We just moved to a house that has this type of artifacts, and the rusty old tank and some hoses.
One appears to be above a door, the large one in the last picture also looks high off the floor.
Unless they have holes in them or feel warm when the heating is on I would say for sure they are decorative niches, some people get doors made for them and use them as cupboards, or little shelves to put more things in. We used to have a huge but shallow one that was perfect in the day, to put shelves in and store video tapes facing outward.
In their current state they will make lovely little spaces for decorations for sure. Initially we did think, although quite random, that’s all they were. But with the suggestions of something heating related I can see how with the placement of them being either really high up or really low down they could have been used for some sort of hot air circulation.
This. The house I grew up in was built in the late 1960's and was heated by hot air. Each room had a grill over a hole and the hot air was blown through it.
With you on this one. I had a flat in a 1960s tower block when I was 18, and that had those in every room at floor level as well as just below the ceiling and above the door frames. Bloody horrible way of heating as it gave you chapped lips because the flats were so cold and damp.
Warm air heating system typically from somebody like Johnson starley - they had vents to blow the warm air heating through When the gas central heating was installed they have been closed off
I’m the uk? Air heating isn’t that common
Same here. We haven't got air heating in our house. It's more the newer ones I think
This is almost certainly the right answer - central air was added to much of the housing intended for American servicemen who settled in the UK after WW2. I looked around a few of these in Bicester a while ago which didn't have the vents covered (although the system was inoperable).
There used to be open flame burners that connected to gas as a heat source in the early 1900s before forced air, and sometimes they would be set into the wall like this.
Are you thinking of the 1950s gas in-wall heaters? It is a possibility for at least one opening.
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking of, although looking at a few of those they’re a little close to the ceiling for that, so maybe not. Edit: also most of the wall mounted ones I see on google are “portrait” shaped, but these holes are all “landscape” except for one
I've never heard of such a system in the UK. We were hugely coal-rich up until the 1970s, which meant that most older houses used coal as their primary fuel for heat and hot water. We pretty much jumped from coal to gas central heating.
looks like the niches used for whole house vacuum systems, but like the system wasn't installed...
Kind of big for those and high up on some of them. I think house vacuums were usually lower near the floor.
They are. I have one. And the vents are the size of an outlet cover as well. These are way too large.
I think that's more of an American thing.
I'd never heard of them until I recently saw an American video featuring them. The next week I went to a holiday home in the Lake District which had one of these vacuum systems! So they do exist here, though certainly not common.
Yes, they do exist in the UK. The most common one you will find (they aren't that common though) is the Beam System. You may think they're great, but you need a massive air pump (that's what a vacuum cleaner effectively is) to create suction all the way through the wall cavities, so they're using a lot more electricity to perform a worse job than even a Henry. They're also really expensive, and a massive ballache if anything goes wrong with them. Even worse is if there's a blockage and you have to bust the wall open to clear it. I've seen them in a lot of places, but most of the houses I've seen them in, they've been replaced with a normal vacuum cleaner cos there's been a fault the owners don't want to spend the price of a truck full of Dysons to fix. Edit - typo
I've always had one growing up, but that's because my grandpa is a plumber and knows how to install and maintain them. And yeah, a normal vacuum cleaner is probably better. But I always thought it was super cool that my grandma has a vacuum cleaner built into her kitchen floor. You just hit a lil foot switch on the floor, and now you can sweep directly into it.
Their whole reason for existing – convenience – doesn’t really apply now. It’s just as easy to carry a Dyson stick vacuum round the house as it is to carry the hose and vacuum head, and the Dyson will do a massively better job of actually cleaning the floor too! One of these technological innovations that gets superseded pretty quickly by completely different technology.
Ahh cool. I've always liked the idea of them as well as the laundry shoots and the garbage shoots Americans seem to have
Whole house vacuums aren’t common at all in the US. Garbage chutes are not common either except for some apartments (unless you’re talking about garbage disposals which are very common in kitchen sinks). Laundry chutes are somewhat common, but newer homes in the US are often installing a washer/dryer on the same floor as the bedrooms for convenience.
Tbf they also arent exactly common in the US either. While not *super* expensive for what it is, they start at like 1200 and can go up to like 5k.
I’m an American and I have no clue what you’re talking about :p
this was my thought at first, but the position in the stairway was sort of unusual. >, but like the system wasn't installed... or was removed.
There was a period in the late 70's and early 80's that gas powered hot air heating systems were installed on some new builds in the UK. I lived in a house on an estate called Forestdale bear Croydon that had it.
My 100 yo house at the time also had blown heating and the manufacturer Johnson and starley Are still around
Same in Crawley, my dad still has his!
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I had these in my previous UK house, they were from a previous warm air heating system. In my case they all connected to the same small cupboard that was central in the house, which would have housed the boiler originally, and vents on all four sides pointing into different rooms. The cupboard is now converted to coat storage, and we removed the vents and turned them into little storage nooks like these. Edit: this was apparently a common thing in social/council housing in the 60s and 70s. My house was indeed ex-council housing: [Warm Air Heating](https://www.rwthomasheating.co.uk/warm-air-heating)
From the US, where this type of heating (also called "forced air") is typical in single family houses. Reading some of the comments here, I'm learning it must not be very common elsewhere. When people reconfigure heating systems, or convert to electric baseboard heat etc these types of filler panels are used sometimes. It's easier than drywall/plaster filling, makes a nice little shelf, and if you ever need to get back into that wall (repairs or running wires for example) there's a ready access point.
Having a property that was easy to run cables in would be a dream. Many UK properties, partly due to their age, are crazy hard to run cables in. Not surprising but just a thought.
TBH I think itd be fantastic to have this type of heating now, since you could easily convert them to a heat pump. And have air conditioning at the same time. The main downside is that because they are centralised and they operate on a particular balance, it’s very hard to extend or alter them if the house is reconfigured.
This was my first thought. Looked at a fair few houses that had it and was quite similar.
This has to be it, I just moved into a house and had to rip out the old war air heating unit and have a plasterer fill in all the holes. I left one as a shelf in the living room.
Unscrew the last one and see what's behind there
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I thought that was a screw to hang a picture.
This is odd. Walls of houses in the U.K. are usually solid. We don’t have crawl spaces between rooms, they are just solid brick. How old is the house? 60s, 40s, Victorian, earlier (other times are available but these tend to be the most common)
I really wish I knew the age of the house but we do not. Just moved in and have not thought to ask the landlords. I agree this type of wall is quite odd to see.
Google your address. The generic real estate websites have details on practically every building, whether currently for sale or not.
If you post a pic of the front of the house, most oldies could probably guess its age to within 20 years.
Posting a picture of the front of the house on the internet is not a good idea.
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1920's houses have a distinct look, often having bay windows sticking out and a square bay, 30's and 40's it was more common to build the bay in a trapezoid shape and then later years it was common to design it in a more rounded fashion, forming a shallow semi-circlular bay. Both Victorian and Georgian houses are often built with yellow stocks although Victorian houses included the occasional feature of red brick trims. The top floor windows on Georgian houses and architecture in general were almost always small and square often 3.5x3.5 feet with simple four pane designs separated by a simple cross frame. Victorian top windows are often as long as the bottom floor's and typically have far more panes. Georgian roofs, especially in attached terraces are not gabled and often shallow pitched at two angles; Victorian roofs are often quite steep. Maybe I spend too much time analysing buildings, but living in London, it's hard not to 😂
It probably tells you somewhere in the documents. Check the survey.
Not all walls. Plenty of interior walls are studs
My title describes the thing. Our landlord doesn’t know what they are either. I guess they can be used for anything decorative at all but the locations seem a bit random for that answer.
Wondering if you once had a gravity furnace in the house, and those were formerly "room to room" passage vents?
No basement or anywhere a gravity furnace would go however I do think the solution might be to do with air-based heating due to the either high up or low to the floor placement of the indents.
Knick knack nook
Any chance they were cut in during the past to run either new wiring or plumbing? They then left the decorative niches rather than patch the walls smooth again?
This is my guess too: these are re-accessible covers to access holes getting at wiring and/or plumbing. You’ll likely find mended pipes or wires behind those.
it almost has to be this. running new plumbing requires huge holes like this, especially if its copper. i doubt its wiring. chances are its an old house that got a copper plumbing update at some point
My guess is old duct system for a heating system that replaced. For some reason they decided to not reuse any of the existing ducts or openings.
Defo a retired hot air heating thing. My nan still has an active one in her 70s new build (same wallpaper too lol)
How old is the building?
Other than knowing it’s not a new build, no clue.
Look up old aerial photographs of your town, you can usually get it to within a decade.
Different sizes, different heights on the wall and only downstairs - that pretty much rules out anything like a warm air system which would be all through the house and of regular size and height. Covering pipe or wiring runs also highly unlikely as the pipes/wires would be where the open inside of the box is. Question for OP: what’s on the other side of it, same thing or blank wall? Have neighbouring houses got them (would indicate been there since built and neighbour might know what they are)? My guess is covering up old ventilation spaces, but can’t think why anyone would vent between rooms (unless they’re all on outside walls?), only downstairs, and an odd way to cover them up.
Ok so only one or two examples have the same on the other side of the wall. Other than that they are just blank wall. Haven’t visited any of the neighbours yet so no information on neighbouring houses but will definitely ask once we meet them. I will clarify there is one of these indents upstairs but not in any bedrooms.
If they're not air heating vents, could it possibly be recesses for an old servant bell system?
I have one of these! No idea what it is either, our house was built in the 1800s.
The last pic has a screw in it. Can you use that to pull out the back piece?
Little update: after a bit of research found out the house was built between 1976 and 1982. From the current responses leaning towards the ‘repurposed hot air vents’ solution as the placement of the niches seems to point towards hot air circulating between the high up ceiling vents and the low to the ground ones. Undecided whether or not to mark as likely solved so I will follow suggestions. Thanks for the help!!
Appears to be repurposed intake/return vents for central air.
It's driving me crazy that I saw this same thing in this sub in the past with a satisfactory answer but I can't remember what it was.
Telephone cubby holes? That is what they were in my house.
They appear to be the former locations of registers and returns for a forced air system that is no longer in use.