It's only a pantry if it's big enough to walk into and move in. Otherwise it's a cupboard. Or the fridge.
Edited to add that the built-in place off the landing where the hot-water tank is and the sheets/towels are kept is an airing cupboard. In our dank, damp country we like to keep our linen somewhere warm.
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.
It's only a pantry if it's big enough to walk into and move in.
Huh. We have some non-walk-in-able pantries. Basically, it looks like a closet from the outside, but you open it up and it's just shelves. No room to walk in, though, but it still counts as a pantry.
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Date: 2010-04-21 09:07 am (UTC)Edited to add that the built-in place off the landing where the hot-water tank is and the sheets/towels are kept is an airing cupboard. In our dank, damp country we like to keep our linen somewhere warm.
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Date: 2010-04-21 10:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-23 02:26 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2010-04-21 10:18 pm (UTC)Huh. We have some non-walk-in-able pantries. Basically, it looks like a closet from the outside, but you open it up and it's just shelves. No room to walk in, though, but it still counts as a pantry.