Good morning folks,
The window in my ‘new’ French kitchen has two doors beneath it with a space behind - basically some sort of cupboard/storage built into the wall. I wonder if anyone can tell me what it would have been used for? See photos below.
Thanks in advance 
Edit: It’s on a south-facing wall so I assume it wasn’t a larder for keeping food cool?
In the winter, it’s for storing things that like cold, damp conditions. In the summer, it’s for things that like hot, damp conditions…
Looks just as though the people who put it there did it for storage space that was shut off and level up the window area. I don’t think its for any specific purpose other than that and perhaps the wall was unsightly too!
North facing? A larder?
Do you have any reason to feel it’s more than just a cupboard?
th closure doesn’t look as if it works from inside… so on the face of it… one puts stuff inside, one closes the door… and walks away… 
We have a very similar one in our house in mayenne. It also has a small drawer in it. We were told it was used by previous owners as a store cupboard. This is also on a south facing wall, but then again most of our windows are.
Welcome, @MichaelB !
Can’t have too much storage, my mum used to say
Not quite the same, but our house has several cupboards built within the walls, which is a little odd to say the least.
We looked at a 1970s pavillon which had what I thought was a great idea: the backs of the bedroom cupboards were just a layer of plasterboard, so gained in size a volume as deep as what the wall thickness would otherwise have been.
Possibly great until we worry about insulation. 
Might this space have originally been a doorway? A window and cupboard may have been a more economical and practical substitute.
The external wall thickness beyond the back of the cupboard appears to be less thick than the main wall either side, and why would that be?
And the window appears to be flush with the inner wall surface, which isn’t traditional, is it?
Perhaps it was a door in a previous life - assuming we are at ground floor level.
I thought that is exactly what the French do, at least in traditionally-built houses.
Not in my house, a Charentais type building. But the wall thickness below my windows is thinner than the main wall, the windows being set back within recesses.
It’s a kitchen window but the kitchen is above the sous-sol and so is about 9 feet above external ground level. There are no signs of it having been a door.
houses will differ… like so many other things…
We have a filled-in doorway… the inward-opening triple-window is fitted almost flush with the outside, but allows a windowsill for the shutters to close and fix on to…
and there is enough free depth inside to allow for a window seat… 
other windows are set at the furthest possible outer edge… and yet some others are fitted almost flush internally… a right mixture
this is unsurprising as the property has been converted time and time again over a few centuries.
We also have what we use as wardrobes… deep cupboard spaces in the walls… some have doors fitted some do not… the walls are so thick that even these recesses have a backwall perhaps a metre thick
It’s where the penguins live.
Obviously.
Nah! It’s The Borrowers.
I guess it makes it easy to p-p-pick up a Penguin . . . . . I’ll get me coat . . . .
We have a large cupboard that may once have been a window, but difficult to date The doors have hand forged (not cast) serpentine hinges and the planks are 15" wide walnut which is uncommon around here though still plentiful up the Lot Valley. From their markings , I suspect they were floorboards probably from this house or a mediaeval ruin in what is now our garden.
Certainly the cupboard is some centuries old, but not as old as the house.
Love this detective work!