Period House in Family Album

[jocelyn plummer]

View attachment 1I have just started to unpack some more boxes-- yes I know that we moved 3years ago but these last boxes are now all books. One is full of yet more family archives.
I have a photograph album which is undated but I think probably just into the 1900's. Most of the Family have been identified, and most of their houses, but not the attached pictures. I think that it may be in Worcestershire, as one of the following pages shows Eastham Church. Does anybody recognise it? As yet I have not found mention of any relatives living in Eastham just Rochford. Also do you think the pictures are of the same house?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Yes - it is the same house. The lower picture probably being later as the climbing plant is bigger and bushier.

Is Eastham quite small? If it has been Google Street Mapped, then it mght be worth a virtual drive through and see if you can locate the house - or even an aerial flyby - the shape of the house from above with that extension, as well as the chimney arrangement might be distinctive enough to spot?

 

[jocelyn plummer]

A quick google search brought up a little about the Church which is I think grade1 listed, and just 205 population. Yes, I will try a google map search--I keep forgetting that nothing is completely secret these days!! I am still hoping somebody will recognise it!!

 

[LadyArowana]

A quick google search brought up a little about the Church which is I think grade1 listed, and just 205 population. Yes, I will try a google map search--I keep forgetting that nothing is completely secret these days!! I am still hoping somebody will recognise it!!

Fingers crossed it's still there and recognisable, wouldn't it be fun to find it!

 

[Penners]

Well, I can't be of much help, Joss, other than to tell you that I've had a good look through the Eastham, Worcs listed buildings on the Images of England website, and I can't see the house.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I did an aerial google map search of the area around the church earlier without much luck. Eastham doesn't really seem to exist as a hamlet.... unless I'm in the worng place.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Pretty much what we found too!! I have now got an album dating from 1880 which has tiny newspaper cuttings of hatched, matched and dispatched announcements all carefully stuck on the pages and have found references to people at Eastham. A little progress but it it's going to be a long process.

The albums smell sooo musty-- we've been sneezing like mad. I have put a big bowl of bicarbonate of soda solution on the windowsill which seems to be helping to absorb it a bit.They are all leather covers and gold leaf pages meticulously presented with lovely squiggly writing beside many of the pictures. I have even spotted some of the furniture and china that we have, in the interior shots. Fascinating !!

Well, hopefully we'll find the house, thanks for help so far!

 

[Moneypit]

Couldn't resist a bit of detectiving on a quiet Easter Sunday. I think I may have found it for you. If so, it isn't far from Eastham Church.

It may not be the same house but there are many similarities but also a few differences (additions). What seems to be very distinctive is its roofline, sloping at the front and back but flat across the top, from chimney stack to chimney stack (or valleyed perhaps). The current building appears to have a further extension to one end, matching the other side. It also now has two dormers in the front roof, but also shows the three dormers on the rear roof.

Have a look on Google Earth at 52 deg 18' N, 2 deg 30' E and and glimpse it through the trees on Google Street Map.

I put it to you, Jocelyn Plummer, that this may be the house you are looking for.

Hope so anyway

Happy easter

 

[Penners]

Have a look on Google Earth at 52 deg 18' N, 2 deg 30' E

If that's the location of the house, then I suspect it may have a VERY serious damp problem.

 

[Moneypit]

If Penners is right I have probably underestimated how accurate I needed to be. I'll upload an image from Google Earth later when I'm at a PC. If anyone wants to have a look themselves it is about half a mile from Eastham church on a bearing of about 140 degrees. You can't miss it, there are very few buildings and it's the first one in that direction.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Do you mean this one?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.314644,-2.501289&spn=0.003607,0.010568&t=h&z=17

I spent spent an hour or so looking last night all over the area, and Rochford too. This was also the most likely I found, but don't think it is it. It is too different in many respects to the photos I think.

Or am I looking at something different to you Moneypit?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Joss - my in-laws live not far away in Ludlow. Next time I am down in a couple of weeks, I'd be happy to do some drive-bys for you if you have a list of "targets"... 8)

 

[Moneypit]

Family Wiggs, I was looking at the cluster of buildings just the other side of the wooded area from PRA Air Conditioning. I know there are a lot of differences but also so many similarities. Given that it is so close to Eastham is it not a real contender? Even the slope of the land goes the right way.

I'm not in work till tomorrow, ive a good mind to go and have a look

 

[Penners]

Do you mean this one?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.314644,-2.501289&spn=0.003607,0.010568&t=h&z=17

I don't think that's the one. Here's how it looks on Streetview - not all of it is visible but the bits you can see look wrong:

 

[Moneypit]

Here are the Google Earth view of the house and the Street View capture through the trees.

Apologies for my earlier coordinates which war not only too coarse a resolution but should have been West not East. You can come back from the North Sea now Penners.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Hey! What fun we are all having! Firstly, thank you. I will check out the suggestions shortly. FamilyWiggs a drive by would be great, thank you. I really don't have anything else to go on in the way of alternatives. The graves shown in the photos labelled Eastham Church are to the memory of somebody called Browne, a name that has not appeared in my archives, unless it is a maiden name which I have yet to establish.

 

[MdB]

I think I can claim today's prize with the following:
http://msteer.co.uk/biog/3Whitcombe.html

 

[MatthewC]

Well done MdB - certainly looks like the same house. How on earth did you find that?

Jocelyn - you might just have some interesting relatives, judging from that link!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

EASTHAM CP -
SO 66 NE

5/41 Robin's End

18.4.66

GV II*


Shown on OS Map as Rectory.
Rectory, now house. c1735, on site of C17 building, with late C19 and
c1930 additions. Brick, plain tiled roof with parapets and brick stacks
at gable ends. Two storeys, attic with dormers and cellar; chamfered
plinth, three-course band between storeys and moulded eaves cornice to
the front and a dentilled eaves cornice at the rear. Five bays; windows
on main floors have gauged flat heads and are all 12-pane sashes; two C20
hipped dormers with 2-light leaded casements; central bay has a two-storey
gabled porch wing with pediment, first floor 12-pane sash window and main
entrance beneath with moulded architrave, part-glazed door and transom
light. Interior: noted as having its original open-well staircase with
moulded handrail and slender balusters of alternating turned, spiral and
fluted design. Also said that the late Georgian wallpaper survives in one
ground floor room. Two wings both of similar scale are built onto the
gable ends; the late C19 east wing is of two storeys and attic, has a gable
end parapet and external chimney; its front elevation has a ground floor
6-light casement and a first floor tripartite window with cambered head
and central 12-pane sash; the arrangement of its rear elevation of two
ground and first floor 12-pane sashes with cambered head is repeated on
both elevations of the c1930 addition at the west gable end. Adjoining
the C19 addition is a C17 single-bay timber-framed wing which survives
from the previous building on the site. (VCH 4, p 265).


Listing NGR: SO6604368165

 

[Penners]

Time to claim your birthright I would say, Joss! Next PPUK party round at your place, then? :wink: