Hidden in the cellar............................

[DonaCatalina]

If its not a torture chamber,
What would you expect to find in a secret cellar of an old mansion?

[Trillium]

Treasure!!!  Lovely sparkly things!!

[KeeperoftheBar]

A well stocked wine cellar...I don't think they have mead cellars.

[Elkyn]

A laboratory, of course.

[mellingera]

what i'd like to find- giant well preserved fabric stash!
what I'd likely find- cobwebs and giant spiders 

[Marietta Graziella]

cracked and broken jars of canned tomatoes, green beens, etc.
old wooden crates filled with dry and brittle papers, faded pictures, and old clothes.
a dust covered trunk with a mysterious wax seal over the lock

[Gwen aka Punstergal]

Hmm.. I could imagine cracking open the cellar of an old mansion and finding the tombs of the original owners.. that would be cool, in a morbidly fascinating sort of way.

Or, if the mansion were somewhere high and dry, maybe a great occult library that was hidden long ago to protect the practitioners?

Perhaps a secret passageway that leads out of the mansion which was used in times of persecution but then the knowledge of it's existence was lost one dark night when the original owners didn't escape in town and the state auctioned off the property to the highest bidder?

I like this game!

Apparently a few old mansions in the US have secret cellars which once housed speakeasies during the prohibition- I saw a documentary on them once that was pretty nifty.

[Baron Doune]

A solid brick wall that does match the rest of the house!

[Hoowil]

I did find one with a secret door, and passage that ran through the hillside the mansion was on, to the back of a closet in the "maid's" cabin.

Secret cellar? Hmm.. how about a time machine? nah, way to improbable. Probably an altar of some kind, for whatever religion/cult was out of favor around the time of the mansion's origin.

[DonaCatalina]

A lot of old houses in England have what is called a 'priest hole'. During Elizabeth I's reign, many families remained secret Catholics.
The priest would have a hiding place for the altar and its furnishings in order to say a private and secret Mass.
Many of these were behind false walls in cellars and behind fireplaces.
Some of the rooms and entrances were so ingeniously hidden that they were only discovered during modern renovations or when the house was being torn down.

Now what else can you imagine to be hidden in a secret cellar?

[Tremayne]

One of the treasures stashed would be a box of love letters surely.

(Not at all original of me to mention having just read of such a case here in AL--love letters found within a wall during renovation)

[DonaCatalina]

Port Royal, for lack of better words, was a boom town. It was situated in just the right spot, at the right time and offered exactly what was needed. In the mid- 1600s Jamaica was a British colony surrounded by Spanish and Portuguese property. For most of this time Spain and England were at war. Port Royal was a safe protected harbor with a good draught and centrally located along the trade routes between Panama and Spain.
Of course, there were many unlisted "Inns" in Port Royal. Just about anyone who a store or house could open a tavern. Most often these tavern were nothing more than the room of a home that was set up with a table and some chairs. the Home owner would hang out a sign, and provide drink and perhaps food to customers. depending on the influx of merchants marines/privateers, just about any house in Port Royal could be an Inn for the day.

In fact some InnKeepers had two or three establishments in the same building! One room would be for upscale people and serve the best wines, brandies, and whiskeys from England to the merchants and plantation owners. Yet another room would serve locally produced beer and rum for strumpets, fishermen, and mariners.

It was quite common for new comers to Port Royal to come down with the "flux" or the "gripes". (Dysentery or what was probably lead poisoning) both diseases were blamed on the water, and locally distilled rum. The gripes were more likely caused by the rum which was often distilled using lead pipes.
The problem with lead to an increased demand for Spanish Rum. When England and Spain were at war, this opened up the market for rum smugglers.
As a matter of fact, Rum Smugglers operated as far north as the Boston harbor.
The Inn that could serve Spanish Rum could count on a continuous stream of customers.

Many of the more permanent houses had fairly extensive foundations because of the need to dig deep to get past the sand.
It was only natural for the inhabitants to add secret places under the floor for hiding their valuables,
and of course the precious Spanish Rum.

[renren]

Skeletons..spiders..

[DonaCatalina]

Other houses famous for having hidden places were on the 'underground railroad'.
http://www.waynet.org/levicoffin/default.htm

These houses featured hidden rooms and spaces for hiding runaway slaves until they could be moved further away.
These hiding places ranged from spacious attic rooms to tiny closets in cellars. A few of these have been featured on the Home & Garden Channel when their secrets were revealed by modern renovations.

[Scotsman]

Your kidding right? Scotch of course!