Yes - most houses in Britain are heated by hot water piped through radiators, and even before the days when full heating was common, the hot water was generally heated by a "back boiler" arrangement which used waste heat from the fire in the main family room. The storage place for said hot water is almost always a very large, lagged tank, in a cupboard with shelves above it, usually merely slats, so the towels and bedlinen can be kept dry and lightly warmed.

A country which is cold half the year and damp most of some years requires that sort of set-up, or you end up with damp sheets - something our Victorian forebears thought caused all sorts of illnesses, like pneumonia.