Where Was The Gun Cupboard?

[Erik Narramore]

It seems there may be some confusion about this, which I think has been caused by David Bird's 1991 COLP interview.  In that interview, Bird gives what I believe is an erroneous description of the cupboard's location.  The relevant extract of the COLP interview is attached.

To summarise from Bird's description:

You walk in through the back door (i.e. the side door on the 'white' side of the farmhouse).

You are now in the back hallway/back passageway.

To your right is the main kitchen (the kitchen door opens inwards into the kitchen).

To your immediate left is the scullery/back kitchen [I don't think Bird mentioned this].

Also to your left is the downstairs office, which was Nevill's private 'den'.

Further along you find a back staircase that is disused because it is piled waist high with papers and suitcases and what not.  Bird describes this as like a "garret".

So far this is correct, but then Bird states that underneath those stairs is the gun cupboard.  This is partly right, but Bird is implying that the gun cupboard is along the back hallway, whereas I think it was in Nevill's den.  I believe Bird has got slightly confused/misremembered, and if so, I think I know why.

T be clear, having studied Bird's contemporary photograph of the gun cupboard in situ and compared this to a floorplan, I think the gun cupboard was actually in Nevill's den.  However, Bird is half-right in that the cupboard is under the back stairs.

I suspect the reason for the confusion is due to one of Bird's photographs, which shows the door to the den ajar.  Looking at it, anybody would think that is a wardrobe or large cupboard, when in fact it is the entrance/exit to the den and leads to the back hallway.  I think Bird mistook that doorway for the downstairs access to the "garret" and that is what is confusing lots of other people since.

However, I could be wrong.  Does anybody know better?  Maybe there was more than one gun cupboard?