finds under floorboards in period homes

[SilverSaloon]

Hi

I found a bottle of "pure toilet paraffin - a delightful dressing for hair" under the floorboards in my cottage i am renovating last night.

Would anyone be able to guess how old it might be?

Has anyone else found anything under their floors? I'm sure I've read some good posts here before about old shoes etc.

thanks

Derek

 

[MatthewC]

I've got some bottles out of the garden, but the best things I found in the house were the newspapers that lined the cupboard shelves. They were dated 1955 or 56 and advertised "Calamity Jane" at the local cinema! Sadly, since the departing woodworm had eaten lots of nice little holes through them, the pages just disintegrated. Other than that, I only found an old 1950s half penny under a floorboard - I hoped it was a sovereign when I first saw it.

 

[SilverSaloon]

I have also found a couple of newspaper cuttings in the walls - unfortunatly, like you the woodworms had eaten through them but just about managed to read that one is from the 70's and the other from May 1990. Not very old at all really, and I think the 90s paper ended up in the wall as "padding" when the stone work was repointed, and the 70s one probably when they did all the nasty chemical damp proofing I'm currently hacking off

 

[drpepe]

my floorboards have nothing but mud and rubble (and several plectrums from the previous owner music business).

I found several nice heavy iron weights buried in the garden - part of the garden used to be an orchard, so possibly from a cider press?

 

[skier-hughes]

My floorboards just have the room beneath

We did find a 1951 newspaper in the wall, 4 pages, reasonable condition, moaning about tax rises, vat and religious wars.............

 

[kreyszig]

there's a thread on here somewhere about a sunken bath under the floor boards. complete with coffin shaped cover. I think that one will take some beating!
edit: here it is

 

[plasticpigeon]

Found some gas mantle boxes, ancient fag packets and a half full blue bottle of milk of magnesia.

 

[Feltwell]

The previous owners left me a little bag of finds that they had come across - a few old well worn coins, and a couple of Victorian postcards that they found behind skirting boards.

So far, I've found very little. I found some bait boxes for mice under the floorboards on the 3rd floor! A bit odd as there were none anywhere else. But then I found out why when we replaced the roof. Birds, sparrows I think, had been getting into a blocked off void in the roof space for many, many years - we took about 5 bin bags worth of nesting material out of there. From this void, it is possible to get into the gap running alongside the joists, under the floorboards in the attic rooms.

When I repaired a broken tread on the stairs, peering into the void beneath I found some small bird skeletons - a bit odd, as the stairs are in the middle of the house. What must have happened is young birds must have got under the floorboards from the nest, hopped across under the floor, then fallen into the void under the stairs and met their untimely demise. The house owners, hearing sounds under the floor, must have assumed they had mice up there and put bait boxes down. Poor little sparrows!

Other than that, a 1950's newspaper from when someone ripped a fireplace out in one of the bedrooms and blocked the hole up (badly, of course). And a 1970's fag packet from an electrician I presume, underneath a junction box.

 

[wobs]

Not under the floorboards, but in our back garden, we are currently having a new garage base being layed. Digging up the multiple tonnes of soil that was piled up down the side of the old garage were the remains of two slate fire places, that were probably in our downstairs rooms.

They would have been lovely, looking at some bits. We still have both mantle pieces as they were still intact, and one is used for the raised bed, and I'm wondering if the other one could be utilised as a window sil for the kitchen window.

Also, when the builders started to dig up the old base, they came across the remains of the Edwardian tiles that went down the side of the front porch. I pulled many of them out to see what they were like. When I get chance, I hope to record what they were as part of a working document for the work we do to the house.

Its like Timeteam here.

Interestingly, the builders took the fragments of slate to the waste site, where the chap in charge pulled them out in the belief they'll come in useful. We know this as we were at his house on Sunday. Small world and all that.

Edit: Also found three beer barrels for home brewing, one of which is nice porcelain barrel.

The only things I have found under the floorboards have been lots of dodgy wiring (all now sorted), and lead piping from when it was gas lit.

 

[angrybird]

I have just found part of some Vulcanite dentures (late 1800's)whilst digging out some steps in the garden.The porcelain teeth are still perfect if anyone needs a replacement tooth :lol:
A Seamstress named Miss Nuttal used to live in a cottage in the garden, I do hope I dont find the rest of her :shock:

Under the floorboards I have found some old tobacco advertising signs , Aladdin pink paraffin advertising,old candles and some Chest and lung mixture.

 

[angrybird]

there's a thread on here somewhere about a sunken bath under the floor boards. complete with coffin shaped cover. I think that one will take some beating!
edit: here it is

I think this has been my most favorite post of all

 

[Flyfisher]

We've not yet discovered the hidden Saxon hoard that is surely buried somewhere in or around our house. And have had to settle for an old Woodbines packet and some screwed up 1970s pages from the Eastern Daily Press.

However, Mrs FF did find an old beer bottle from Bullards & Sons - a large 19th century Norwich brewery - in the river. I can't get her to help tidy the house but in the summer months she's happy to don a wetsuit and spend all afternoon snorkelling and tidying up the river!

Still, I mustn't complain. A quick search on ebay suggests that such bottles sell for around £4.50 so that's a good start to our valuable collection of ancient artefacts. :lol:

 

[Feltwell]

some screwed up 1970s pages from the Eastern Daily Press.

Save yourself some money FF - If I know the EDP then the headlines will be pretty much the same as they are now!

 

[mattice]

Balls of wool surrounding a plastic doll that looked like something out of the exorcist - it took a lot of courage to head into the floor space after that find :shock:

 

[Flyfisher]

some screwed up 1970s pages from the Eastern Daily Press.

Save yourself some money FF - If I know the EDP then the headlines will be pretty much the same as they are now!

:lol:
Sounds like Skier's newspaper headlines above.

I gave up buying newspapers decades ago, so the occasional find is quite a novelty really.

 

[Flyfisher]

Balls of wool surrounding a plastic doll that looked like something out of the exorcist - it took a lot of courage to head into the floor space after that find :shock:

Surrounding the doll in a sort of pentangle arrangement? :shock: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Spoilt Victorian Child]

I've yet to find anything in my house yet, however my friend who has also just bought a place sent me this amusing text the other day:

"Having the heating replaced. Found a coin from 1902 with Queen Victoria's head on it behind the back boiler. House was built in 1965."

 

[xanthe]

I don't think there was anything under the floorboards, but when my parents uncovered the bressummer beam over the inglenook there were all sorts of things in the holes in it - a gun flint, early sulphur tipped matches, a rolled up 'Child's Pleasing Instructor' on Thou Shalt Not Steal with a picture of young boys standing under an apple tree with a big mantrap. There was also a child's shoe.

When they were doing work in the corridor upstairs, above one of the doors was a space containing a mummified cat and 2 rats (they put them back and plaster-boarded them in.

Loads of stuff in the garden - clay pipes, china dolls heads, pennies etc

House was a timber-framed lobby house from around 1670 with a C18th brick front.

 

[CliffordPope]

Mummified cat skeleton buried in the mud and rubble wall of the cottage.
I understand they did that to bring good luck, or ward off evil spirits, so obviously I put it back.

In a previous house, dozens of garden gnomes under the floorboards, many of them headless.

 

[xanthe]

My mother was very worried that the cat had been put there alive - but I did suggest that there might well not have been two mummified rats in there too if it was.

Our new property has very good apotropaic marks carved on the bressummer, but since there are no spaces under the floorboards (most form ceilings) we won't be finding anything more than spiders.