The history of your house

[domino]

What lovely interesting histories some of you have about your houses.
Mine is about 55 years old, (well, quite young I suppose really). It was old farmland and an infill site. I love digging the garden, lots of broken old crockery and glass bottles etc: Behind us was the Gravesend Airfield before they built a housing estate on it. My twin girls often joke that I might dig an airplane up one day 
I would love to live in an old house with some history.
Love the one about the millworkers cottage....must be nice not to lock your doors.....
Best wishes.....Iris

[Gadget]

Although I've lived in many old houses in my time - mainly Georgian, Regency or early Victorian inner city - I now live in a house that was built just for us 13 years ago

So it's history is a bit limited.

However, as this is crofting country, I looked through all the available 19th century censuses for our very, very small area (now 5 scattered houses) and was able to find who lived where, etc. Even found letters about the houses.

Gadget

[kerryb]

Unfortunately my house was only built in 1982 and I know most of the people who have lived in it since then, I still get their mail!!!

However my grandparents house, now owned by my brother was built in the 1930s and has always been in the family.  When my brother bought it 5 years ago he investigated.  Basically the row of houses were all built in the early 30s by people buying up plots of land that had been earmarked for houses.  The plot where my brother's house is was the last one and my great grandfather who lived next door and his brother bought up the plot and had the house built. 

We know it was the last one to be built because it is on a slightly different alignment from all the others. 

My brother has copies of all the deeds and stuff and I am trying to get him into a good mood to ask for copies. 

Kerry

[Simon G.]

Our house was built in 1903 as housing for miners in either the Parc or the Dare Colliery in our village (I forget which).  I have a copy of the original plans lying around the house somewhere...very interesting they are.

[dawnwas]

My house was the stationmasters house for the railway and was built in 1897.
The walls are made of plaster and horsehair then covered with hessian.
The glass in the windows is handmade and strange to look through.
Have nerver found anything very exciting in it or around it.
Not an old house by UK standards but quite old when living in Aussie.

[keenbutconfused]

I've got a tithe map from mid 19th C which lists the occupants of the houses in our village and which house they were in - my house was actually two separate dwellings at the time - what is now my kitchen was a separate cellar dwelling, with an elderly lady and her daughter living in it - the rest of the house was occupied as one unit by a family.

There wasn't any access from what is now my living room to what is now may kitchen (you go downstairs into the cellar / kitchen) until the 70s when it was converted.  When we started refurbishing it 3 years ago, we found that the only thing that was holding this staircase up (and, consequently, that end of the living room floor) were 2 six-inch nails jammed into the mortar between two stones!!!     

Unfortunately, on the censuses, all the houses down in our valley are just listed as households, with no numbers - there aren't any identifying buildings to take a 'marker' from and lots have been demolished in the intervening years, so I can't easily tell which is my house. 

(I suppose I could ask whoever it is who keeps wandering in through my front door - but I'm a bit worried I'd get a reply!!!)

[kerryb]

I used to live in an upstairs flat in a building that was built in the 1890s.  The people who lived downstairs were friends on mine and their son did a history project on the history of our house.  It started life as a Fishmonger and then became a Butcher before becoming a fish and chip shop (which I remember as a child)  My flat upstairs was the living quarters.

He found an old photograph which was really interesting and when we painted the outside several years back we scrapped off some paint and found the remnants of the name advertisement on the side of the building. 

The Dad downstairs swore in the middle of the night sometimes he could hear the deep fat frier.  I told him it was because the shop was now their bedroom.  I remember queueing in there for my chips!!!!

Kerry

[Crinoline]

I must make a note about this programme, - I haven't seen it before.

I was born in a "Metroland" house and am living in one now, - (built in 1926 by the Metropolitan Railway Company). They were modelled on the idea of the "Garden Suburb" & influenced by the Arts & Crafts movement, & so there are lots of leaded lights & sloping roofs:-)

In between, I've mainly lived in Victorian houses, - our last one was built in 1870, & when we took the kitchen floorboards up we found several early Victorian coins, perhaps lost by the original workmen!!

I love all of the decorative detailing on Victorian houses, the ornate plasterwork & coving...
My present house has none of that & I miss it...(although we did reinstate an open fire when we moved here).

I also love the slate roofs on Victorian houses, - my husband and I put a new slate roof on our last house together. I'll try to attach a pic of me in my roofing days:-)

Romilly.

[kerryb]

Wow Romilly I am impressed!!!!!!

I had slates on the roof of my flat (previously mentioned) and I loved the look of them, particularly in wet weather.

Kerry