Our cottage, circa 1950s/60s
We were recently lucky enough to be visited by a lovely couple in their late-70s who used to live in our cottage until 1966. Or more precisely they lived in the left-hand side of it, as it used to be two, with a staggered split upstairs to make it a pair of 3-bedroom dwellings.
They kindly showed us a load of old photos, which they let us scan in. Very useful, as they show how it used to be before being solf off from the estate in the 1960s modernised and turned into a single cottage.
I have also just obtained the sales particulars for when it was first sold, circa 1966/67. It was up for £1300, but no mains electricity, toilets or bathroom!
I'd sussed some of the earlier layout out myself, through walls uncovered during our ongoing renovations works and even the outline of old outbuildings visible in the grass in the driest part of summer. But the extra information and insight as to how people used to live was very useful, and extremely interesting.
It seems to have always been lived in as farmworkers' cottages for the big local estate (itself now split up) until that time. Where now there's four of us living here, at times in the past there would have been 14 or so people! And that was without the extension that now runs along the back of the house.
The lady said there's a dated plaque above what is now our front door, which is hidden by the bush in the above photo (the entrance doors used to be in the side walls). This is now obscured by a lining inside our porch, so a bit of opening-up may be carried out to find that.
There are some things that make me wonder if it started life as a smaller, single dwelling - further investigation work required!
Our cottage, circa 1950s/60s
We were recently lucky enough to be visited by a lovely couple in their late-70s who used to live in our cottage until 1966. Or more precisely they lived in the left-hand side of it, as it used to be two, with a staggered split upstairs to make it a pair of 3-bedroom dwellings.
They kindly showed us a load of old photos, which they let us scan in. Very useful, as they show how it used to be before being solf off from the estate in the 1960s modernised and turned into a single cottage.
I have also just obtained the sales particulars for when it was first sold, circa 1966/67. It was up for £1300, but no mains electricity, toilets or bathroom!
I'd sussed some of the earlier layout out myself, through walls uncovered during our ongoing renovations works and even the outline of old outbuildings visible in the grass in the driest part of summer. But the extra information and insight as to how people used to live was very useful, and extremely interesting.
It seems to have always been lived in as farmworkers' cottages for the big local estate (itself now split up) until that time. Where now there's four of us living here, at times in the past there would have been 14 or so people! And that was without the extension that now runs along the back of the house.
The lady said there's a dated plaque above what is now our front door, which is hidden by the bush in the above photo (the entrance doors used to be in the side walls). This is now obscured by a lining inside our porch, so a bit of opening-up may be carried out to find that.
There are some things that make me wonder if it started life as a smaller, single dwelling - further investigation work required!