Fascinating Helen! Sorry no buried treasure though. I’ve always thought about previous occupants of houses too, they feel so close. I grew up in an ancient thatched farmhouse with a huge iron hook in the kitchen ceiling for hanging up animal carcasses. The whole place had flagstone floors and in one room there were two worn channels in the stone underneath where we thought the table would have been. My dad worked out that they must have been created by the farmer sliding his hobnail boots along the floor as he stretched out his legs after he’d finished his (meaty) dinner!
Loved this especially seeing the photos and hearing your builder's stories; Sunday is the day I get a lie in so totally opening to talking and reading about our interior worlds. We live in 17th century converted stable with a clock on it. The clock was put on for King George's visit. I imagine time travelling in it to other planets all the time mainly because it never changes from 7 O'clock which was the local Lovejoy's favourite time... now it's my favourite time with a cuppa in bed. Just need to reset the body clock for my lie in's. Time to curl up in the duvet now with a cuppa and good book.
Love the old house chat! I live in a small village on the Black Isle in the Highlands - our house was built in 1756. We gutted it when we bought it a few years ago and found all sorts of cool stuff in the walls - receipts from the 1930s, an old shoe maybe from the same time and of course the obligatory 1970s porn mag 😂. I made a wee time capsule with photographs and a letter and put it back in for someone to find in a few (hundred?) years!
This was a nice start into sunday morning! I was still in bed when I read your post - now i'm sitting at my kitchen table, reading again. I love the atmosphere in the pictures! The old house, the foggy seashore ... and in the midst of this somehow melancholic setting your corious and humorous energy! This summer i will visit Edinburgh (first. time in Scotland) and i am sooo looking forward to the city, the old houses, the scottish hills around and the sea! I am open for recommendations what to see there🙂
And yes: please keep telling us about your house. I love this chat!
I love this post! I also live in a 1890 flat here in Aberdeen but I got nothing apart from bad insulation and condensation. It just baffles me because in Turkey you wouldnt want to be living in a house older than 30 years old and here I am living in one from the 1890!
What a fun house chat! The US is so young, we don't have that many wonderful quirky old houses--I love hearing about them. A friend up the road bought a house which had an inordinate number of coat hooks throughout it; one bedroom had a screen door; and in a closet was a bucket labeled "JOE'S FOOT" 🤷♀️😂
Such a wonderful read! More of this please 😊 I grew up in an old house in Somerset that had once been traditional farm cottages — the downstairs would have been for the animals, with the living quarters upstairs. The floors downstairs were stone-flagged with no insulation. Wonderfully cool in summer, but not so good in winter! No bodies under the floor as far as I know, but we did found some coins from the 1700s when we took down the interior wall in one of the upstairs rooms.
A lovely little glimpse for a Sunday morning 😊 I explore old houses in my dreams sometimes, I have no idea why but that’s where my subconscious goes on occasion 😂 Our house is only 20 to 30 years old so not very interesting historiography speaking, but I lived for a while in an old house in a little village near Winchester that was haunted. My telephone would ring at odd hours when no one had actually called and the answering machine would switch on in the middle of the night or there would be a message blinking when I came home but nothing recorded except my own outgoing message... I changed the telephone 3 times thinking it was the machine, but it still happened on the new handset 😱 I don’t believe in ghosts, but I have no idea what another explanation might be!!
This is great, I love the histories of houses. I grew up in Durham in a house that was built on the site of an old pub, so we were always finding old glass bottles, clay pipes (the smoking kind) and once a beautiful glazed tile which has accompanied me to all the places I’ve lived since. When my brother and I were kids, my mum spoke to a psychic who said there was a presence in the house at the top of the stairs but ‘not to worry because he would never harm the bairns’. Obviously I became convinced he’d been murdered in the pub and that we’d dig him up in the garden one day. No wonder my little brother used to have nightmares!
Loving the old photos. I always love the photos of you heading to the beach with Peggy too. We’ve done a walk round the walls at Berwick but never done the beach or lighthouse. Hopefully this summer. That hole in the floor made me anxious for you but the insulation sounds lush. Looking forward to having a bit more of my nosiness satisfied next Sunday! And yes I definitely read your writing in your voice.
Oh how I wish our house had history like this! I love hearing these stories so much. I live in Sydney in an area that was only developed in the early 50's as housing for returned servicemen. Before then it was bush and farming land. The best I've found is carved initials in some concrete, and fabulous wallpaper from the 70s when we did out kitchen renovation. You made me giggle when you said you try really hard to time travel - i do this all the time!!!
Fantastic story.My mum bought an old farmhouse in the North of Holland in the seventies.It had no plumbing, a pump with a well outside, a washhouse to do the laundry , a huge derelict chicken shed and at least seven fruit trees.The floor in the kitchen was concrete and always sweaty , it turned out it was built on a well .It had inbuilt beds in cupboards called bedsteden which is a traditional thing in Holland in old houses. Sadly my mum modernised it all If I was rich I would buy it back and restore it into the unique and eccentric place it was .
Just catching up with this Helen and I so enjoyed it. Thank you. I currently live in quite a new house- well it's about twenty years old now- and I really long to be in a house that tells stories. Looking forward to the next installment.
Here is a snippet of a memory..... A love for older homes began when I was very young. We were visiting my Auntie RoRo in Chicago. She had a wonderful victorian home. When all the aunts and uncles and cousins visited, us kids ran wild though each floor playing Sardines. I loved my Auntie RoRo because she didn't care. Sardines was a crazy version of hide and go seek. One person would hide and then after the countdown, all would go looking for that person. If you found them, you quietly hid with them. Sometimes we were packed into a closet or behind a bed or in an attic room or wherever. When the last person stumbled on the cousin sardines, everyone yelled and the house would echo with peels of laughter. And so my love of old houses began. I wanted one just like Auntie RoRo’s.
I love hearing about old houses! We’re renting a house that’s old by western Canadian settler standards, which just means 1905. Still, I like to think about the ladies in their big swishy skirts living here when it was new and the city full of great cedars and logging men. Our landlords have stuffed the attic and basement full of their family possessions from the 30s on. We once found moose antlers!
Am I the only one to read Helen's writings in her tone and accent? :)
That was a pleasant little walk in the past.. and present 🙂
Fascinating Helen! Sorry no buried treasure though. I’ve always thought about previous occupants of houses too, they feel so close. I grew up in an ancient thatched farmhouse with a huge iron hook in the kitchen ceiling for hanging up animal carcasses. The whole place had flagstone floors and in one room there were two worn channels in the stone underneath where we thought the table would have been. My dad worked out that they must have been created by the farmer sliding his hobnail boots along the floor as he stretched out his legs after he’d finished his (meaty) dinner!
Loved this especially seeing the photos and hearing your builder's stories; Sunday is the day I get a lie in so totally opening to talking and reading about our interior worlds. We live in 17th century converted stable with a clock on it. The clock was put on for King George's visit. I imagine time travelling in it to other planets all the time mainly because it never changes from 7 O'clock which was the local Lovejoy's favourite time... now it's my favourite time with a cuppa in bed. Just need to reset the body clock for my lie in's. Time to curl up in the duvet now with a cuppa and good book.
Love the old house chat! I live in a small village on the Black Isle in the Highlands - our house was built in 1756. We gutted it when we bought it a few years ago and found all sorts of cool stuff in the walls - receipts from the 1930s, an old shoe maybe from the same time and of course the obligatory 1970s porn mag 😂. I made a wee time capsule with photographs and a letter and put it back in for someone to find in a few (hundred?) years!
This was a nice start into sunday morning! I was still in bed when I read your post - now i'm sitting at my kitchen table, reading again. I love the atmosphere in the pictures! The old house, the foggy seashore ... and in the midst of this somehow melancholic setting your corious and humorous energy! This summer i will visit Edinburgh (first. time in Scotland) and i am sooo looking forward to the city, the old houses, the scottish hills around and the sea! I am open for recommendations what to see there🙂
And yes: please keep telling us about your house. I love this chat!
I love this post! I also live in a 1890 flat here in Aberdeen but I got nothing apart from bad insulation and condensation. It just baffles me because in Turkey you wouldnt want to be living in a house older than 30 years old and here I am living in one from the 1890!
What a fun house chat! The US is so young, we don't have that many wonderful quirky old houses--I love hearing about them. A friend up the road bought a house which had an inordinate number of coat hooks throughout it; one bedroom had a screen door; and in a closet was a bucket labeled "JOE'S FOOT" 🤷♀️😂
Such a wonderful read! More of this please 😊 I grew up in an old house in Somerset that had once been traditional farm cottages — the downstairs would have been for the animals, with the living quarters upstairs. The floors downstairs were stone-flagged with no insulation. Wonderfully cool in summer, but not so good in winter! No bodies under the floor as far as I know, but we did found some coins from the 1700s when we took down the interior wall in one of the upstairs rooms.
A lovely little glimpse for a Sunday morning 😊 I explore old houses in my dreams sometimes, I have no idea why but that’s where my subconscious goes on occasion 😂 Our house is only 20 to 30 years old so not very interesting historiography speaking, but I lived for a while in an old house in a little village near Winchester that was haunted. My telephone would ring at odd hours when no one had actually called and the answering machine would switch on in the middle of the night or there would be a message blinking when I came home but nothing recorded except my own outgoing message... I changed the telephone 3 times thinking it was the machine, but it still happened on the new handset 😱 I don’t believe in ghosts, but I have no idea what another explanation might be!!
This is great, I love the histories of houses. I grew up in Durham in a house that was built on the site of an old pub, so we were always finding old glass bottles, clay pipes (the smoking kind) and once a beautiful glazed tile which has accompanied me to all the places I’ve lived since. When my brother and I were kids, my mum spoke to a psychic who said there was a presence in the house at the top of the stairs but ‘not to worry because he would never harm the bairns’. Obviously I became convinced he’d been murdered in the pub and that we’d dig him up in the garden one day. No wonder my little brother used to have nightmares!
Loving the old photos. I always love the photos of you heading to the beach with Peggy too. We’ve done a walk round the walls at Berwick but never done the beach or lighthouse. Hopefully this summer. That hole in the floor made me anxious for you but the insulation sounds lush. Looking forward to having a bit more of my nosiness satisfied next Sunday! And yes I definitely read your writing in your voice.
Oh how I wish our house had history like this! I love hearing these stories so much. I live in Sydney in an area that was only developed in the early 50's as housing for returned servicemen. Before then it was bush and farming land. The best I've found is carved initials in some concrete, and fabulous wallpaper from the 70s when we did out kitchen renovation. You made me giggle when you said you try really hard to time travel - i do this all the time!!!
Fantastic story.My mum bought an old farmhouse in the North of Holland in the seventies.It had no plumbing, a pump with a well outside, a washhouse to do the laundry , a huge derelict chicken shed and at least seven fruit trees.The floor in the kitchen was concrete and always sweaty , it turned out it was built on a well .It had inbuilt beds in cupboards called bedsteden which is a traditional thing in Holland in old houses. Sadly my mum modernised it all If I was rich I would buy it back and restore it into the unique and eccentric place it was .
Just catching up with this Helen and I so enjoyed it. Thank you. I currently live in quite a new house- well it's about twenty years old now- and I really long to be in a house that tells stories. Looking forward to the next installment.
Here is a snippet of a memory..... A love for older homes began when I was very young. We were visiting my Auntie RoRo in Chicago. She had a wonderful victorian home. When all the aunts and uncles and cousins visited, us kids ran wild though each floor playing Sardines. I loved my Auntie RoRo because she didn't care. Sardines was a crazy version of hide and go seek. One person would hide and then after the countdown, all would go looking for that person. If you found them, you quietly hid with them. Sometimes we were packed into a closet or behind a bed or in an attic room or wherever. When the last person stumbled on the cousin sardines, everyone yelled and the house would echo with peels of laughter. And so my love of old houses began. I wanted one just like Auntie RoRo’s.
-Leslie
I love hearing about old houses! We’re renting a house that’s old by western Canadian settler standards, which just means 1905. Still, I like to think about the ladies in their big swishy skirts living here when it was new and the city full of great cedars and logging men. Our landlords have stuffed the attic and basement full of their family possessions from the 30s on. We once found moose antlers!