Author Topic: New Series - A House through Time  (Read 15181 times)

Offline PaulineJ

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Re: New Series - A House through Time
« Reply #9 on: Friday 05 January 18 09:10 GMT (UK) »
I caught part of the programme, and I wasn't impressed.
Eg there was a segment where they discovered that 2 little girls had been sent into an institution, (mother's fate unknown, father gone "to America"), and then they went off to USA to film battlefield sites. Seemingly without any evidence that the father ever fought there, I don't even think that they uncovered him on any passenger list either.

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Offline bugbear

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Re: New Series - A House through Time
« Reply #10 on: Friday 05 January 18 09:19 GMT (UK) »
Maybe The Secret History of our Streets? http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04bx5r1
I watched that - also later than the one I'm thinking of, which was definitely a single property.

This is really hard to google, BTW!

 BugBear
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WOMACK Norfolk/Suffolk

Offline bugbear

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Re: New Series - A House through Time
« Reply #11 on: Friday 05 January 18 09:23 GMT (UK) »
GOTCHA!

No. 57: The History of a House

Architect historian Maxwell Hutchinson presents the 220 year interior design history of a middle-class Georgian house in Bristol, England.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373581/

It was transmitted 14 years ago, so my 4-5 years ago was an awful estimate.

  BugBear
BICE Middlesex
WOMACK Norfolk/Suffolk

Offline candleflame

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Re: New Series - A House through Time
« Reply #12 on: Friday 05 January 18 09:47 GMT (UK) »
Re the comment above about the American war, I thought they said the father was a quartermaster sergeant in the American war and read from a letter someone had sent to their family saying about the good food he and the quartermaster sergeant had eaten that day - steak and something. They said it would have been a far cry from what the ordinary soldier would have eaten.

I found it quite an interesting programme . The man above who had been involved in the cotton industry and therefore the slave industry, the commentator on the programme seemed to veer between disgust re the cotton side to sympathy when he found out that he died from tb at age of 45 (ish)  just as the young abandoned girls had died of the same.
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Offline avm228

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Re: New Series - A House through Time
« Reply #13 on: Friday 05 January 18 12:28 GMT (UK) »
I enjoyed it - but can't remember the detail of the American bit because by then I had got distracted by tracing the history of the occupants of my own house (north London) since it was built in the 1850s.  Not sure why I had never done this before.  Just looked mainly at census, electoral rolls and newspaper family notices so far.

By the end I had got this rough outline of (some of) the phases it has been through:

1861-1889: A slow succession of British-origin merchant or professional men (solicitors, doctors) and their families, each with two or three servants.  Each family was quite settled and stayed several years.

1889-early 1900s: Still a single family home, but heads of household were merchants of Dutch or German/Prussian background.  Many of the names suggest they were Jewish.  Faster turnover.  Fewer servants. 

1911: Occupied as two households.  Younger, smaller families.  One servant each.

1930s: Still occupied as two households, now of older couples beyond childbearing.  No sign in 1939 of live-in servants. 


Ayr: Barnes, Wylie
Caithness: MacGregor
Essex: Eldred (Pebmarsh)
Gloucs: Timbrell (Winchcomb)
Hants: Stares (Wickham)
Lincs: Maw, Jackson (Epworth, Belton)
London: Pierce
Suffolk: Markham (Framlingham)
Surrey: Gosling (Richmond)
Wilts: Matthews, Tarrant (Calne, Preshute)
Worcs: Milward (Redditch)
Yorks: Beaumont, Crook, Moore, Styring (Huddersfield); Middleton (Church Fenton); Exley, Gelder (High Hoyland); Barnes, Birchinall (Sheffield); Kenyon, Wood (Cumberworth/Denby Dale)

Offline bugbear

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Re: New Series - A House through Time
« Reply #14 on: Friday 05 January 18 12:44 GMT (UK) »
... my own house (north London) since it was built in the 1850s.  Not sure why I had never done this before.  Just looked mainly at census, electoral rolls ...
Getting a full contiguous set of Electoral rolls for a person or address is "challenging" IME.

Ancestry's OCR, indexing, and the changing boundaries make it hard.

 BugBear
BICE Middlesex
WOMACK Norfolk/Suffolk

Offline avm228

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Re: New Series - A House through Time
« Reply #15 on: Friday 05 January 18 12:57 GMT (UK) »
... my own house (north London) since it was built in the 1850s.  Not sure why I had never done this before.  Just looked mainly at census, electoral rolls ...
Getting a full contiguous set of Electoral rolls for a person or address is "challenging" IME.

Ancestry's OCR, indexing, and the changing boundaries make it hard.

 BugBear

Yes, very challenging.  Especially in many of the 19th century ones which are organised (within a ward) alphabetically by surname and not by street address, so that my usual tactic of finding a long-term neighbour with an unusual name and navigating from him/her does not work.

I still have huge gaps (e.g. the whole of the 1920s, everything post-WW2) and I am not sure if that is because the records aren't included or because my searches are inadequate. Mind you I have only spent about an hour on it so far :)
Ayr: Barnes, Wylie
Caithness: MacGregor
Essex: Eldred (Pebmarsh)
Gloucs: Timbrell (Winchcomb)
Hants: Stares (Wickham)
Lincs: Maw, Jackson (Epworth, Belton)
London: Pierce
Suffolk: Markham (Framlingham)
Surrey: Gosling (Richmond)
Wilts: Matthews, Tarrant (Calne, Preshute)
Worcs: Milward (Redditch)
Yorks: Beaumont, Crook, Moore, Styring (Huddersfield); Middleton (Church Fenton); Exley, Gelder (High Hoyland); Barnes, Birchinall (Sheffield); Kenyon, Wood (Cumberworth/Denby Dale)

Offline Gan Yam

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Re: New Series - A House through Time
« Reply #16 on: Friday 05 January 18 13:54 GMT (UK) »

For anyone who may have an interest in the house, the address is 62 Falkner Street, Liverpool, the above link says it was previously numbered No. 58 before the building of more houses.  However, I have looked at the census and it was actually No. 28 (maybe a typo on the above link).

Added:  Strangely, in 1841 it is numbered 58 when Richard Glenton lived there, but they state the next residents were James and Ann Orr - they were at No. 28 in 1851/61  :-\  Will have to watch to find out.

Apparently they moved from 58 to 28 which was a bigger house.

I enjoyed the programme, however English Heritage date the house to being built in 1820’s.  There is a possible family notice in the Liverpool Mercury for 1834 for what looks like 58 Falkner Street (don’t have current sub so can’t be totally sure)but maybe there is another 15 to 20 years of history!
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Offline ThrelfallYorky

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Re: New Series - A House through Time
« Reply #17 on: Friday 05 January 18 15:53 GMT (UK) »
I was rather surprised that the presenter and his experts didn't pick up on the actual ownership of the house - many similar houses in the early 19th century were often rented / leased rather than owned outright, and that would have been a reasonable guess where people like clerks seemed to be living above their stations! (And the "clErk" instead of "ClArk" pronunciation was a bit irritating) Did they not check out who built and sold the houses, how many were owner occupied, how many rented, etc.... there would have been sales information, and deeds, etc. My own parents' house had deeds documenting every owner including the original land, and transfer from 1830 when their house was built, with receipts, death certificates, changes of use, etc, and they added to that archive when in time they sold it on
Also, I can understand why the presenter preferred to follow the chap who toddled off to America, but if the programme was ABOUT THE HOUSE, then he went rather off topic.
The census returns were a good place to start, but there seemed to me to be quite a lot of guesswork - I'd not have thought it'd have cost over £1,000 in the first place, at that time, knowing the cost of similar houses not that far away - and a general bittiness that started to grate.
I had really been looking forward to this series, and was sad that it was not as good as it promised.
The illustrations were, however, delightful.
Threlfall (Southport), Isherwood (lancs & Canada), Newbould + Topliss(Derby), Keating & Cummins (Ireland + lancs), Fisher, Strong& Casson (all Cumberland) & Downie & Bowie, Linlithgow area Scotland . Also interested in Leigh& Burrows,(Lancashire) Griffiths (Shropshire & lancs), Leaver (Lancs/Yorks) & Anderson(Cumberland and very elusive)