Reopen and renovate the old cellar (partially filled in)?

Hi.

I have an old house, which originally / basically dates from around 1850. Over the years, however, it has been renovated, remodeled, extended, etc. several times. The predominant, currently existing building fabric dates from the 1950s and 1970s, last major renovation about 5 years ago.

About 5 years ago, when I laid a new water pipe in the garden, I removed the terrace and dug a trench about 1 meter deep near the house wall to lay the pipe. In the process, I noticed the remains of an old staircase. I partially uncovered it and found an old entrance to the house. With a bit of crawling in and using a probe camera, I found out that there is a basement under the oldest / original part of the house. The later extensions have no basement. The basement is largely filled with construction debris; there is still about 1.5m of room height directly at the front, further back partly less or almost filled up to ceiling height. I also noticed water and mud in the front area.

I could use a basement room and have considered whether it is feasible to reopen the basement and remove the construction debris. And then renovate the basement. Or should it be better to leave it as is?

Best regards

There must have been a reason for filling in the basement and the reason is probably still there. Removing the reason and clearing the basement by hand probably costs a lot.

Hm. Water and mud would probably be reason enough to take a look at the whole thing, even if only part of the house has a basement. Eliminate the cause and then you might actually be able to use the room again. So I would probably take a look at it. It's also always interesting to see how a house changes over the decades.

And, what have you done now?