What to do with a house like this?

[LadyArowana]

I really do need to move to Singapore, I'd love it.

Well, I had to go and be fingerprinted today, and forget about buying freehold property if you aren't Singaoprean, and the ideas on conservation would curl your toes, but there are lots of lovely shoes which makes up for everything :lol:

 

[Penners]

I had to go and be fingerprinted today

Aha! Interpol has caught up with you at last, eh?

Not before time.

 

[philpjuk100]

What to do with a(free) house like this? the bull at swanley,hands up if you had a pint in there. don`t worry it will soon be a new premier inn

 

[LadyArowana]

I had to go and be fingerprinted today

Aha! Interpol has caught up with you at last, eh?

Not before time.

Ha, they can't prove a thing, all the Graff diamonds are recut and sold long ago.

 

[Juju]

The listing thing is weird - most of the houses in our street are listed, some are listed for 'group value' - I guess meaning they have nothing particularly exciting about them but they are attached to a house that does. Our neighbour's house (ie attached to us) used to be listed and then she said a few years back she got a letter saying she had been de-listed! Weird - her house is probably as old as ours or maybe 1700s, has old windows like ours and beams, etc and really beautiful panelling just inside the front door. Her neighbour the other side was also de-listed at that time - not surprising as they gutted 2 18th century houses in the 1960s and made them into one and have no original features whatsoever as far as I can see. They've recently added an ugly plastic conservatory to the back of their house too. They at least have timber windows but stained dark brown and bear no relation to what might have been there before - probably either sashes or casements.

We're listed and would like to think we do everything by the book and following the SPAB philosophy - but the person who renovated the house replaced all the skirtings, most of the floorboards and most of the internal doors. I assume they were in a bad state. But he did keep the windows, 2 very nice internal doors, external door etc. The next owner I think took some liberties - he claimed the council said yes verbally to secondary glazing and a sort of lean to on the kitchen (which our surveyor described as a monstrosity but it's very useful for coats & shoes! We're saving up to replace it with a more sympathetic structure - a lean to was demolished there with LBC in the 1990s so I guess they might be ok about us applying to put one back?)
JJ

 

[Schoolmarm]

Joce, I don't know lots about building really lol!



I think the arguments and extreme views are the most important part of a forum. If I googled "xyz suspension discovery" and then read a heated debate on the merits of one suspension over another on a forum, I would be able to learn a huge amount about the strength of feeling one way or another. I could then go off and research for myself or I could ask a question.
If my search results showed only glowing reports I would tend towards believing it and not bother even asking. Especially if it was something I already wanted.

If I had read some of the threads on here when I first bought my house, I would have done things differently. We owe it to the period properties and their owners to not just keep being sweet and admiring anything posted.

I also feel quite strongly that I am an extremely temporary keeper of my house.

 

[robgil]

What to do with a(free) house like this? the bull at swanley,hands up if you had a pint in there. don`t worry it will soon be a new premier inn

swanley in kent? i spent 6 months there as a stepping stone to get us out of london , i was told the local pub was so dodgy that you had to be invited to go drink there otherwise the locals would not take too lightly to your being there!
i never went for a pint in swanley.

 

[Tom]

I also feel quite strongly that I am an extremely temporary keeper of my house.

Me, too. And I feel humbled that I've been able to stop the certain demolition of this house, despite people being in disagreement about what I've done with it. There were plans afoot to replace it with either 4 or 5 new detached houses or an even higher number of 'affordable' housing :shock: :shock: There was also more than one person who suggested, after we bought it, that the best thing to do was knock it down and reuse the materials to build a new house that would look old :roll:

 

[LadyArowana]

J

If I had read some of the threads on here when I first bought my house, I would have done things differently. We owe it to the period properties and their owners to not just keep being sweet and admiring anything posted.

I also feel quite strongly that I am an extremely temporary keeper of my house.

I don't think it is necessary to admire things you dislike or disapprove of. I do think that when someone has chosen to ignore advice but acted within a legitimate frame of reference the criticism needs to be couched as a personal opinion of their actions rather than a general condemnation of something truly antisocial.

 

[Flyfisher]

I was told by our CO that the last main listing visits were done in the '80's, and as Penners says as per council tax, were drive by's.

That ties in with our house being listed in the late 1980s.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

I hesitate to ask, in case you all say my house isn't worthy of listing ( :roll: ) but I was wondering if things like this panel merit listing?

View attachment 2

View attachment 1



Whilst the timber frame upstairs has been altered (you can see the gap on the left where that cross-member should have continued, for example), there is a fair bit of the original fabric, and obvious later additions which are now historic in their own right. Elsewhere we have burn marks (apotropaeic?) on beams, much original frame (the loft is a delight with untouched limewash on the rafters), an original stone fireplace we think is 16thC, stone mullion windows, some rather fetching (later) brick chimneys, inscriptions over original door frames, 16inch wide boards in some rooms, ?original oak steps to upper levels, etc. I suspect that there is further wattle and daub under other plasterboard walls - but haven't investigated yet as it could be destructive. Incidentally, we've done nothing to the panel above - it was like that when we bought the place 5 years ago.

We also have nasty cement pointing, a very unsymapthetic crazy-paving extension, a fair bit of DG (we've replaced two so far with wooden SG!)

I don't think this is the best example house in the country, far from it - but I think it has a number of features worthy of preserving and conserving; and possibly more hidden away. I'd hate for someone after me to come along and rip out that panel and put in plasterboard for example.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? If we did decide to look into it, would the CO laugh us out of county hall?

Thanks.

 

[JoceAndChris]

The mellow views posted here are all very well, if you really can't be bothered to care that much about conservation, taste, or architectural coherence.

However, if you all believe that the opinion of a unskilled person, who has no architectural training, little understanding of history, historical fitness for purpose, or conservationist approaches to sensitive adaptation of a period building - that that opinion carries the weight of a Gareth, a Gervase, a Nemesis, then I'm afraid we part company.

In the decision of how, or if, to remove render off my house - DWB or Gervase? No contest at all.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Come on Joce - stop sitting on the fence and tell us what you really think! :wink:

 

[Schoolmarm]

8)

 

[Gareth Hughes]

If there was something special about this house that merited protection but wouldn't have been obvious to the casual lay observer then I would have expected it to be listed

I have the impression (which Gareth may confirm or refute) that the problem with the whole listing system was, in fact, that it was frequently done by casual observers - somewhat like the council tax banding, which seems to have been largely a "drive-by" assessment.

This is quite true where our house is concerned. I believe (and I may be wrong) that there were two main listings done; one just after the War, when petrol was still rationed and many outlying properties simply weren't visited, and one in the early Sixties, by which time our house had been slapped with cement render, painted white and looked unremarkable.

The first lists were indeed drawn up just after the war, and the process of "spot listing" then added a dribble of further buildings. The last comprehensive (well, supposedly comprehensive) listing review was carried out in the early 80s, and as Penners says it was a very rapid, drive-by affair, which quadrupled the number of listed buildings.

The rapid resurvey was initiated by Michael Heseltine when he was Environment Secretary - he was livid, in particular, that the Firestone Factory in west London was about to be listed when, over the course of the August Bank Holiday weekend 1980, it suddenly went from this:

View attachment 1

to this:



The resurvey wasn't perfect, by any means, but the result was a lot better (more representative of our architectural heritage).

Listings today are supposed to be carried out on the basis of an internal as well as an external inspection, though this isn't always possible or desirable (there is still no interim protection so the wrecking of a building by the owner while it is being considered for listing is by no means unheard of - we've lost at least one in the last couple of years, although it almost certainly wouldn't have ended up being listed).

CADW have just "completed" a full resurvey for Wales (which has added a huge number of new list entries), but the absence of houses like Robin's - which from the photos looks like an dead cert for Grade II - suggests that there's still a problem with persuading the investigators to venture up even moderately remote cart tracks

 

[Jill]

That panels amazing FW, is it exposed to the elements?

 

[Schoolmarm]

That panels amazing FW, is it exposed to the elements?

There is a room on the other side of it and a bannister of an internal staircase on this side. :roll:

 

[FamilyWiggs]

CADW have just "completed" a full resurvey for Wales (which has added a huge number of new list entries), but the absence of houses like Robin's - which from the photos looks like an dead cert for Grade II - suggests that there's still a problem with persuading the investigators to venture up even moderately remote cart tracks

Really? When I first read that Gareth, a massive smile spread throughout me - very quickly followed by a sudden fear that my responsibility to the building is perhaps much greater than I thought.

I'm off to learn about listing...

 

[Jill]

Sorry, I was meaning open into the room, so it could be touched, not to the outside elements.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

That panels amazing FW, is it exposed to the elements?

No it's all internal. I've just examined it really carefully and I think I can see a few scrapes of what looks like old lime plaster on top of the daub. When I look at the straw and small stones in it and realise someone made it themselves maybe 400 years ago (possibly using the clay-ey soil that blights my veg patch!), it makes the hairs on my neck stand up.

That's a special feeling to have about your house. Quite a privilege.

Sometimes late a night on a clear evening, I walk around outside looking at the land and house, and wondering how many people have done that before me here,

Am I weird?