Do you recognise this house? The Limes Porthill

[Ebba]

Hello everyone

Back on October 8th 2008 I started a posting on this forum called "Do you recognise this church?". It contained a link to some photos of a church on my 'Flickr' site.

One thing led to another and the thread went on for 23 pages and has now had something like 7,000 hits.

The church was (with some difficulty) identified as St Margaret's in Wolstanton, Staffordshire, but the reason for my posting was really to identify a large country house that was in the same photo album. I bought the album in Sussex some 20 years ago, and was simply curious to discover where it was. I thought that by identifying the church, it would be easy to then find the house! Little did I know!!

The very many kind people who helped me with my original query suggested I re-post the query under a new name, as the church is now identified but the house is still not. I think there are quite a few still keen to track it down. It's taken me weeks to get round to this as I had a disaster with my Flickr site and had to re-load everything.

Just to summarise what's already been discovered or discussed:
1. The house might be in Wolstanton, but might just as well be absolutely anywhere. The fact that we have not been able to find it there is suspicious.
2. It is probably associated with the Adams family of Wolstanton, wealthy earthenware manufacturers of the 18th & 19th centuries (and beyond), because...
3. ...the photos of the church contain the initials CJA who is probably Cecily Janet Adams, daughter of the family born in the 1860's. Cecily is also acknowledged as the photographer of some photos in a vast tome of family history by her brother Percy.
4. Percy included in his book a numbers of photos of houses associated with the family but none look like the 'Mystery House'. Some are included at the end of my Flickr entries.
5. All the photos I have posted on Flickr are from the album, but I have no way of knowing if they are connected. It is not impossible that Cecily photographed her village church and took the rest of the photos somewhere else.

Here is the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30927575@N03/

Look forward to receiving any new help or comments.
Ebba

[lookingforold]

Just to keep in contact now the other thread has finished.

[mosiefish]

Hi All,

Here is the link to the previous topic - just so we don`t lose sight of it. 

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,333031.0.html

Love the new photos Ebba. 

Mo

[Ruskie]

I'm just bookmarking this too. I just LOVE your photos Ebba and I prefer the way you have them displayed this time. 

[bitty_matriarch]

I'm just bookmarking this too.

Me too.  I found the previous thread absolutely riveting!

   Ann.

[Ebba]

Thanks all.
Also thanks to Mo for including that link to the previous topic, which I meant to do but forgot.
Fingers crossed for a result this time!

Ebba

[RichardK]

I'm struck by the pattern of chimneys at 'The Oaks' - is The Oaks the mystery house from behind but with taller chimney pots?  Did we establish precisely where The Oaks was / is last time?

[Daisy Loo]

The Oaks was in Wolstanton I think...because I saw that Watlands was in Porthill, which was the area on the census, just before The Oaks.

I don't think the picture of the Oaks, is it's back view. A picture like that would be the front view.  I'd rule it out, because of the shape of the roof.

[mosiefish]

I'm struck by the pattern of chimneys at 'The Oaks' - is The Oaks the mystery house from behind but with taller chimney pots? 

Strangely enough this too drew my attention this morning and wondered if it was the rear of the house - conservatories were usually at the rear.  However the pots are missing from the top of the chimneys and I don`t think they would have been removed at the time - not like today.

Hey ho!

Hands up everyone who could now do a conducted tour of Wolstanton and the surrounding area  - especially from an aerial view.   

Mo