That’s normal in big old houses. I’ve done work in houses built in the 1800s. They build in steps and ladders to access those areas. They didn’t have lightweight portable ladders, and if a rich guy was paying for it you had the money to spend.
This was an normal crawl space that is only interesting because it’s in a big old house.
One of those strange websites where the only clear photographs are those for the ads.
That crawlspace looks exactly like the fallout shelter in my old elementary school, except bigger. You had to access it from the boiler room.
They don’t have a clue about how safes are constructed or operate either. If you don’t know what you’re drilling for in a safe door, DON’T DRILL! Also, splashing the flame from a blowtorch certainly doesn’t do anything to a safe or even an ordinary hollow steel door except maybe damage the contents.
My first thought, too, given the age of the house.
Not sure why he called it a staircase though.
Upper middleclass Brits take a certain amount of pride in not teaching their kids how to do basic maintenance and carpentry. It would not surprise me if the narrator has never even touched a power tool before.
The metal drill bit breaking was announced as a dramatic turn of events.
Don’t go that way.
Person with more money than sense doesn’t understand the history of what they have bought.
That means he also doesn’t understand the responsibility he has taken on by purchasing a piece of the past. This is why the National Trust is needed, even when it is under attack these days
500 years old is stated, so it may not be quite old enough for this to be true - or it may be. And these spaces are so large as to be obvious to the priest hunters (frankly, I’mm surprised this young guy’s family did not long ago realise internal and external dimensions may not have matched, re the vertical space, and the horizontal spaces is just below-floor footings gaps) so not very good for hiding priests. Real priest holes were much more snug, in general.
ETA also @PsiPhiGrrrl , and I see @jerwin sort of beat me to it along the same lines
The stories describe him as a “property developer”, which poses more questions given the slapdash handling of power tools and apparent lack of nous about what he’s looking at.
In the US, some parents spend almost two decades focusing on kids’ education over leisure (discouraging play and sports). Then they are shocked to discover their children have issues with hand-eye coordination, and basic skills can’t all be learned from books or videos. 
Yep. One of the perks of living in a 500 year old house. Possibly the only one, as I’d imagine it would get rather draughty.
The US is a much younger country, so the best we can hope for is a safe full of dank carpet samples.
… is often merely a financier and speculator, these days. But they keep (mostly) honest tradespeople employed, so there’s that.
The footwear in all situations was a half step above sandals.
and carbon monoxide poisoning
what kind of tool discovers a secret passage, then screws the door back shut and puts books back on the shelf
also, “let me know if you want me to open the safe…” seriously.
AFAIK I don’t think we really have crawl-spaces in the UK generally, which explains why it’s more curious than it perhaps would be in a US property
We certainly do. We do not call them crawl spaces (as far as I know we do not call them anything at all, really).
E.g. there is at least 2-3 feet below the ground floor floorboards of my house, built in the early 1900s. My last house but one also had the same - it was a mid-Victorian terrace.
Older houses did not have solid slab foundations, like today’s as they were built before pouring concrete became a thing. They were built on footings (wider bits of wall, below external ground level, often) and thus the space below the ground floor was created.
