If you live in an old house what's the most weird / interesting thing you've found?

[Comps83]

I live in a boring new build which I hate
Hoping to move to a Victorian terrace with period features soon
If you live in an older property what have you found when ripping out 70s plaster board or carpets , in the loft etc.?
I love anything like this

We stripped the wall paper to find the previous x2 occupant's son had expressed his love for the popular tv show the A Team on the painted walls underneath.

Our house used to belong to Robert Maxwell (the neighbours told us that his helicopter used to land in the adjacent field and he would appear with various female "friends")
DH and DS found a huge mirror in the out house that had holes that corresponded with the indentations on our bedroom ceiling.
We bought the house complete with contents as everything was super top quality( it was like the Mary Celeste) there were a pile of books, which I read my way through, one was about a person who faked their own death by jumping off a yacht!!!

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername

We didn't find anything, but we had a visit from the local police within a few days of moving in, to reassure us that the previous owner would be incarcerated for a long time if they had anything to do with it, and the house and garden had been thoroughly searched before it was put on the market.

That was unexpected.

Did you find out the details, or did you decide it was better not to know?

Nothing exciting found in this house, but in a previous house we realised the access to the coal shed had been blocked up when a new brick shed was built in front of it - we could see other houses had a coal shed and assumed it had been included in the new shed, then realised the inside of the shed was shorter than the outside wall. We took the tiles off the roof to look inside the bricked up part, and there was nothing exciting in there - just some random bits of rusted metal!

In my last house (built in 1726), there were bread ovens in the cellar, and when I was having the roof replaced, the roofers found a pair of leather clogs by the chimney. Apparently that’s fairly common, but a friend suggested I contact the Shoe Collection in Northampton, as they keep an archive. We had them photographed for the collection before putting them back.

@CreepyCreepster Definitely a witch bottle! I always worry about them harbouring the plague or whatever 😂

@Bluntness100 what you described us a priesthole look them up x

I remember my mum and dad renovating an old cottage in the peak district and finding teeth and hair in the walls in pots. It was 28th century and we found out used to be the village undertaker's house. My mum's friend swore blind she saw a ghost there, but not until they'd moved out as they didn't want to freak them out.

18th century not 28th 😄

This reminds me... I still occasionally lay awake at night at times really desperately wondering what's behind the locked green door in Mary Kings Close in Edinburgh.... I know it's just a touristy hook story but... Sometimes I wonder...

Love these stories - especially the Geronimo condom box!

Our house is 1880s and we haven't found anything very exciting, but like a PP we have a big pile of documents relating to previous owners and sales etc. We're always digging up bits of crockery and bottles in the garden, but my favourite has been a tiny medallion (about the size of a 1p coin) with The Lord's Prayer on it in tiny printing.

Did you find out the details, or did you decide it was better not to know?
I've been finding it out bit by bit from google and the locals. He dabbled in pretty much everything up to and including manslaughter and attempted murder. Illegal weapons, drugs, car theft, arson, all sorts. And I suspect there's more I don't know about. Thankfully it's much more boring here these days.

We found:

• several old tobacco and match boxes under the floors
• a few pages of the daily star from the 70s, notably and most disturbingly with an article in which women defend their husbands’ penchants for lap dancing/strip clubs
• a lovely tiled fireplace behind an asbestos sheet
• that someone had made a rather large structural alteration in 1960

@passthemustard Here's some info about tally sticks: www.bbc.com/news/business-40189959

Old medicine bottles
Shoe moulds (Male/female/kids)
Shoes in the fireplace

House is 250yrs +.

A cobbler lives in our cottage and we found the metal moulds he used. We buried them under the slate patio to keep them safe.

The small medicine bottles are on display in the inglenook.

The shoes were found when we knocked into the inglenook. History is they are left in the house if the child dies there so its soul never leaves, so we put them in a metal box and hid them in the wall and we will never see them again.

During lockdown 1, to liven up homeschool, we conducted a mini archaeological survey in my BILs back garden. We metal detected to discover the location of an old air raid shelter, then set to with mattocks and trowels (I'll say here that we do know what we are doing).

Turns out that FIL (long deceased) back filled the air raid shelter in the 60s with all sorts of shit from his shed. Wires, bits of plastic, old paint tins. Good dateable evidence, but probably toxic, so we stopped there.

Mil found a page from a calendar for 1910 in the loft of the house years ago (built in the 20s). She liked the picture so much she framed it and it still hangs in the house.

I found a WW1 deactivated shell whilst digging in the garden. Didn't know it had been deactivated till the Bomb Disposal Squad had checked it though. That area of the border is going to grow a bit wild I think.

Also found a beautiful Victorian cast iron fireplace hiding behind a 60's gas fire when it developed a leak. Sadly the grate was missing and we didn't have the money to pay for a replacement before selling the flat so we covered it up again.

Our house isn’t old but we did make an interesting find in the garden. We were having it landscaped when the builder found what looked like a brick floor and a hatch under the flower bed. He opened it and went inside. There was a ladder down to the floor. I think it’s some sort of drainage. It’s big enough for a six foot builder to stand upright in and lay down across. Can’t remember what it’s called. We covered it up again. It’s still out there somewhere.

A wonderful framed oil painting in the loft of a beautiful lady. Now hung above the mantelpiece in our spare room. Also 6 safes which I thought was a little OTT - according to the previous owners clearly every bedroom needs a safe - we've been giving them away to friends!

I've heard of something similar before and it was a former brothel

I found an entire original cast iron roll top bath buried our garden. house 1910

@Cruddles

A wonderful framed oil painting in the loft of a beautiful lady. Now hung above the mantelpiece in our spare room. Also 6 safes which I thought was a little OTT - according to the previous owners clearly every bedroom needs a safe - we've been giving them away to friends!

I've heard of something similar before and it was a former brothel

Yikes!

There is a wooden wheel in my loft, wedged between the joists.
The walls have a load of rubbish in them - horsehair, rubble, bits of wood, old nails etc, but also two knives found so far.

Only a servants’ bell (electric) and a weird horn/loudspeaker on the outside of the house that you activated with an electric switch. Thinking we should have kept them.

Renovating an old farmhouse and removing some rotten floorboards in the snug we found an uncapped well directly underneath. It was full of water and extremely deep. It still makes me shiver to think that the floorboards could have collapsed and someone could have fallen in it.

@buddywoo that would bevery worrying. Was the farmhouse in the uk? Why was it indoors though, or is that usual for farmhouse kitchen or in preparation for sieges? City person from 1940s newbuilds here.

I’d never heard of tally sticks before, so thanks for the info!

Parents found papers and photos from 1801 when doing building work to fireplace. Also child’s shoes in a wall cavity.

@Buddywoo
That's scary.
Are you in the UK ?
Did the previous owners not let you know ?