Hello...and a couple of questions :)

[RedGables]

Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone! And a bit of background...I stumbled across the site following some Christmas break googling following an unexpected visit over the break by a chap who'd lived in our house in the late '50s and who'd got a couple of pictures of his mothers' that he thought we'd be interested in... You seemed like a helpful lot so I thought I'd stick my head over the parapet...

The house? It's late Edwardian, and on the south coast (well, a few miles in land) in an area that grew rapidly following the arrival of the railway and the subsequent easier access to London for the market garden businesses in the area that came with it. We moved in about 6 years ago, after buying from a couple who'd lived here for 40 years, brought up their family and then decided to downsize - having sold a chunk of the back garden to developers

The reason for posting? Well, there are a couple of things that have always niggled me, and the pictures that we've been given haven't helped. So I though that the wisdom of the board might be able to help shed some light on them. They're pretty simple, and related to age and floor plans / access...but the following pictures will hopefully help with my predicament!

Front 1950s

Rear 1950s


Front today (literally!!)


Rear today (literally, and into the sun so not very bright...)


Floor Plan (19??>>2010)


Hall today


And, just for historic interest, a teenagers scribbling on the wall uncovered during some decorating!


So the house has barely changed since the late '50s at first glance externally. Which means that the extension that I'd assumed was built in the '60s / '70s infilling part of the 'H' shape the house is much older. It contains the breakfast room downstairs, and the bathroom / lavatory upstairs. But how old? It was there in the late '50s, and looked pretty weathered. So built in the '30s? It has a flat roof, and is that obscure glasss in the upstairs window '30s? I have no idea, but hopefully someone does!

The second one is, how, before the extension was built, did you get into the very back room upstairs? The floor plan (from the sale particulars, but not materially different now bar the addition of an ensuite in the right hand bedroom and some revising/knockin together the bathroom/lavatory) would imply that you couldn't (the bathroom and lavatory shown on the floor plan, along with the landing alongside them are in the extension) but that seems unlikely ☺. All of the rooms upstairs bar the back bedroom and bathroom have the same, presumably original, 5 panel doors that match those downstairs. So the only access would have been through the middle bedroom. But there's no sign of a door... downstairs you can see in the hall where the door to the kitchen was, so that makes sense!

Appreciate any thoughts that might help

 

[livias]

Why do you think that it is an extension? It looks like it belongs to the original house to me because the string course continues on around and that is the sort of thing that gets missed out with extensions

I can imagine that the roof line has changed though. Perhaps there was a pitched roof with a consequent valley that leaked and rotted the underlying timbers
The two gables at the front appear to be the same height whereas the ones at the back do not. Is there a clue there?

 

[RedGables]

It's a good question..but it's got a flat roof that just seems out of keeping with the rest of the house. I agree though that the 'decorative' brickworks does seem to be continuous. I too had wondered perhaps as originally built it was single storey with a pitched roof. I think it's the angle of the photographs that makes the gables look different heights though - I'm pretty sure they're the same. But When looking from the rear the left hand side part of the building is deeper than the right, if that makes sense? So sort of 'H' shaped, but with one side higher than the other. Also the way the internal doors seem to have moved indicate some changes. But I'm no expert!

 

[plasticpigeon]

Well what a lovely house, and so nice to have some information on the history too. It is a puzzle isn't it. I can't see the upper window within the H of the house at the back ever being designed to be so close to the wall at right angles to it. I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I think it is all an extension. The fancy bricks or in fact most of the bricks and windows could have come from the part of the house that is now within the extension so it makes sense that they could have been used to make the addition look seemless. It also makes sense to me that the door that now leads to the breakfast room off the hallway would have been a back door at the back of the hallway, probably with glazed upper panels to make the hallway more light. If that is the case, the back door off the utility room couldn't have been where it is now, and on the old picture there was still one on the other side of the window so maybe that was the original one. Is there any evidence of there having been a window at the back of the hall at all? A room off a room is not so strange, I've seen this quite a lot, it could have been a dressing room. I'm not an expert either, but I agree with you, it doesn't look like it was originally like that.

How about the front, have you ever wondered why there is a string course between the bays but not around them?

 

[RedGables]

Thanks for the input

You've both asked good questions about the hallway; I'll try and add a bit more detail! The door that leads to the breakfast room is narrower than the other doors of the hallway (including the now blocked off one) and so is almost certainly not original in my opinion. The original door into the kitchen was probably the blocked off one n the hallway. The window at the side of the breakfast room looks original, or at least original to the house, although intestingly the architrave around it is a bit of a mosh mash. Most of it matches the architrave in the rest of the house, but there's a bit that doesn't... I think the utility room is original...the brickwork down the left hand side of the house seems to match all the way down, but again it's difficult to be sure. I did perhaps wonder whether what is now the breakfast room was a much smaller 'lean-to' type room accessed from ten kitchen originally, perhaps a pantry / coals store or something? The small window upstairs top left in the '50s picture seems to have been reused in the room with the lavatory in upstairs.

And the other bit of info I omitted, and which is it visible in the picture, is that there is also a bricked up door from the kitchen to to outside - its in the right hand corner of the kitchen when looking at the plan.

So while superficially it appears that the house hasn't changed much, it does seem to have changed quite a bit in the first 40 or so years of its life - I wonder if that's usual?

 

[malcolm]

Is it possible the rear of the house was designed for servants (common until WW1). A kitchen and utility with a couple of small rooms directly upstairs with a bathroom where the rear bedroom is. Could there have been a staircase somewhere for the servants?

The upstairs window in the flat roof part is missing it's stone lintel so us unlikely to be original. The flat roof doesn't seem in-keeping with the house. Is the brickwork bonded in where the flat roof part joins to the house at the inside corner? Often they didn't bother chopping out bricks from the original structure to key the new structure in. Could the architrave around the outside have been removed from the original part and bodged into the new part? It would have been a little short if they did that.

It was more common to alter houses back then. Labour was much cheaper, and the people living in that sort of house had lots of money. My house had a new facade built in the latest fashion in 1910.

 

[RedGables]

Do you know what plasticpigeon, I hadn't even noticed that the string course didn't go all along the front on the house! Though it is continues along both sided and round the back. How odd...

Th brickwork on the flatroofed bit it keyed into the rest of the house, both in the corner and at the back where the rather ugly UPVC bay window has replaced the old one. In fact it's difficul to see any difference in the brickwork at all, though (and I might be my mind playing tricks) the mortar courses on the upstairs of the flat roofed bit *might* be slightly thinner than downstairs?

The lintel above the window at the side of the breakfast room is consistent with the others on the house, though as I mentioned, the architrave inside is not 100% consistent. The architrave around the back door and window in the utility room is however consistent, along with that around the window in the downstrairs lavatory. The door to the downstairs lavatory most definitely is not however. Is it possible that the downstairs lavatory was only accessible from outside, through the door to the left of the back door visible in the '50s picture?

Interesting to hear that it was more usual to change houses around in the period, but I suppose if labour was cheap why not?

 

[RedGables]

Despite having lived here for almost 7 years, some of the questions prompted me to wander round taking a closer look at architraves. I think my partner thinks I'm going mad!!

Closer inspection shows that it's not only the window at the side of the breakfast room that has incomplete architrave. Though a second look at it, and comparing to the size of the window at the back that's been replaced with a rather ugly bay window, makes me think that they re-used the architrave, but on a larger window, and so were around 18" short! You can clearly see a join in one section where the bits have been pu together...

But the doors also throw up more questions. The current door from the hall into the breakfast room/kitchen has architrave consistent with every other door off the hall, which is fairly ornate, despite being much narrower. But only on the hall side. The other side is very plain. Though if this is a 'new' door there might not have been enough reclaimed architrave (from the blocked up outside door the side of the kitchen?)

The door into the utility room has consisten architrave all round, the same as the doors in the hall, but there's evidence of joins in the bottom 8 ~ 10 inches. Evidence of alteration, or just damage/rot in what might have been a damper environment?

And then the back door; again the same architrave, but not on the left hand side where it buts up to the wall between it and what's now the breakfast room. Would a door have been fitted in such a way that this was the case?

The more I look the more questions I have!

 

[RedGables]

Sorry, one more question / observation! Would cheap labour, which enabled people to undertake large scale remodelling,also explain the time taken to reclaim materials? Were materials, relatively speaking, more expensive than labour? If so, how things have changed!

Oh, and good news, I can now post without each one being reviewed!! So my responses will appear more timely