More Basement Archaeology

There I was putzing around in the basement of the "Crackhouse" once again. Actually I was doing some more plaster repair work when I got myself distracted as usual. I have a spot where we get water entering in one of the rooms when it rains, I decided to pack mortar into the gaps between some of the stones to see if that would reduce or eliminate the leakage. Some old plaster and flaking whitewash was falling off the wall so I took a scraper and then a brush to it then I had to sweep up the mess it made. Where is all this leading? Well, I'm getting there.

There is a door placed between two of the rooms with a 10 inch wide wooden threshold that had been embedded in concrete. I decided to pull this up to discover that it was rotten and that the wood had converted into soil which in turn had roots and assorted bugs growing in it! So I cut the roots (ripped them out really) and took a brush to the inch of soil and what did I find? Bricks! All nicely packed and laid out as a floor. I suspected that my basement had a brick floor under the concrete and now I have found it. So now I know that I can readily lower my floor down there by several inches should I want to. It's not something I'm chomping at the bit to do....