I'm rereading "Jude the Obscure" for the 4th time. There's a passage early in the book, in which the very young Jude offers his aunt's "fuelhouse" as a possible place to store his beloved teachers' piano.

Fuelhouse. I've never heard of individual people having fuelhouses. I've certainly heard of woodsheds. How common were fuelhouses? And were they woodsheds or were they...I dunno...places to hold coal?

I haven't heard of this, either, WW. What time and place was this in?

Seeing as you don't appear to be drowning in opinions, WW, here's what I've sussed/found:

1. Hardy likes fuelhouses.
"Please will your grandfather lend us his fuelhouse to try over our parts in, tonight at seven o'clock?"
"What, are you one of the Egdon mummers for this year?"
"Yes, miss. The cap'n used to let the old mummers practise here."
"I know it. Yes, you may use the fuelhouse if you like," said Eustacia languidly.

The choice of Captain Vye's fuelhouse as the scene of rehearsal was dictated by the fact that his dwelling was nearly in the centre of the heath. The fuelhouse was as roomy as a barn, and was a most desirable place for such a purpose.
The Return Of The Native

So - roomy as a barn!

2. The only references I can find indicate that fuelhouses were attached to significant properties (such as lighthouses and farmhouses). This implies that Jude's aunt's place is a fair size, and she has a bit of land. Does that make any sense?

3. Going by Good King Wenceslas gathering winter fu-el, I'd suspect that fuelhouses would primarily be places you would store unworkable wood, although not exclusively so. Hardy mentions "turf-fires", so perhaps peat would also be stored in fuelhouses?
Coal would imply a messiness that wouldn't really work with beloved pianos, or even mummers' rehearsals. Perhaps it wasn't in popular use in country dwellings?

Asking as many questions as I'm answering, but it's a start

We had a fuel house at the saw mill where I worked one summer in Flagstaff. It looked like something left over from WWII in Germany, a bombed out brick building, two stories high. During the day bulldozers dozed sawdust, wood chips and bark onto a chain that carried the fuel into the steam plant where it was burned to make steam to run much of the mill. Some was also dozed onto chains that carried it into the fuel house where it built up during the day so that it could be used at night when the bulldozers were dozing intransitively. The fuel would cake up and the chain at the bottom of the fuel house that took the stuff out and onto the chain that fed it to the steam plant would stop bringing in new fuel. It was then the job of some poor sucker (me, for my last couple of weeks on the job) to go into the fuel house and, while straddling the chain, try to knock down the cave of fuel on top of himself.

Thanks for the speculations.

No, Jude's aunt didn't have a fair amount of land. She lived on the green and ran a bakery, which would let us know that she had need for a lot of fuel in order to bake!

I guess it was an enclosed woodshed then.

Jackie, the time would be earli-ish 19th century. Don't know the exact date of the tale, but should be able to find out.

Good point, Fish, about the coal and that not being good for mummers' rehearsals and piano storage.

Bole regards,
WordWood

Yes, Dub-dub - I'd agree with your dating: somewhere between 1800 and 1820, I think. And at that time, rural areas were still very reliant on wood and charcoal for their fuel (or peat, in Northern parts - this wouldn't apply to Hardy country, though.)

Coal was in common use in the towns, from about the 1770s, as wood was becoming increasingly scarce ( therefore expensive, of course.) The towns were well served by the canal system by the early 1800s - the first large canal had been from a coal mine at Worsley to Manchester (about twelve miles, probably), and it brought the price of coal down to a third of its pre-canal price.

From this you can work out that transport costs, pre-canal and pre-railway, were high. This is why coal wasn't used very much in the rural areas, except where the canal ran through the countryside.
It may also have been a factor in making wood a less viable fuel option in towns.