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 moved into a 400 year old house when I was 6. My parents found a bag of gold sovereigns and a papered over cupboard-had loads of newspapers in it.
Dh found a priest hole in his bedroom-he grew up in a very old house; it was mentioned in the Doomsday book.
In our current house I’ve found an old iron, old bread oven in the kitchen wall when we were replacing the kitchen. In the loft we found a box full of manuals for 1940s TVs & radios etc. When digging the foundation for our extension they found loads of very old bottles-we’ve kept a few as they’re really unique.

Our first home was a school conversion. I found the words “John Travolta” carved into the brick work several times!

The oldest part of our house dates back to the 1500s but unfortunately it was completely renovated in 2000 after being left empty and largely derelict for years. No weird items left other than an absolutely massive (unlocked) safe in the basement that we think was used for keeping the good china in.

Our house came with a barn which had been used as the owners garage complete with mechanics pit.
On a shelf in the garage were charming tin advertisements for tyres and other car related things which I guess were from the 1950s & 60s and which I had planned to put in a large frame. We converted the barn into a studio and went away for a couple of weeks while the work was going on and when we got back all the advertisements had been chucked out by the builders.
I should have removed them or told the builders to put them aside.

Some of these are fascinating!

When my grandparents extended their house they found two skeletons when they were digging the foundations. They were dated to the Bronze Age!

@Neighneigh

Our house is from 1814 and so far we have found two cat paw prints in the brickwork. A Napoleonic cat!

@Neighneigh I think that's a fossil pawprint in sandstone - much older than Napoleon! Where are you living? Might come from a fairly near-by quarry.

My uncle bought a thatched cottage in Wiltshire, whilst 'doing it up' he found a load of old fabric bags full of twigs and the like and a few old pairs of children's shoes in the chimney breast. The says that when they were removed he had loads of bad luck, and as soon as the builder bricked them back into the fireplace his bad luck stopped.

We were replacing a window that had been blocked in, the original frame has the name, age and signature of the joiner who made the window. He was 18 and the date was 1856. We also found bricks made by children, you can tell that that they are children because of the hand prints that finish the brick.

@Andante57 I reckon your builders flogged them on!

MsAdora oh, I hadn’t thought of that!
When I asked what had happened to them they said they’d gone in the skip with all the other rubbish which had been taken away.
You may well be right.

Our home in France dates from 1800’s. The top floor had open slots 250x500 cm along the front and back of the building. It was where the farm stored their hay back then as air would got through and keep the hay from going stale.
Both gable ends were panelled out. When we converted upstairs to living space the far wall was actually a false wall with a void of about 1mtr x 5mtrs.
Apparently the farmer was part of the French Resistance and kept rifles and ammo there away from the occupying Germans.
There was nothing left other than a tattered hessian sack.

@Ringsender2 that's an idea! I just assumed it was a cat walking across the wet brick...there is a quarry near here, the southern bit of North Yorkshire. We're attached to a big house with lots of documents still available, I might try and find out where the brick was sourced from. Never thought about a fossil!

My dad had a house in france. The original house had a proper massive invention fireplace and a stone sink that emptied on the ground outside. Up the rickety staircase, health and safety would have condemned them, there was a large chest, unfortunately nothing in it. There was natural spring, the previous owner had created a concrete "pond" next to the steps up to the front door, it was chock full of beer and wine bottles and quite a few beers who were rehomed at a better location, the spring seeped into the cellar, then came up again half way down the garden. Fun was had by all when we dug a trench from the 'pond' to the bottom of the garden to reroute the spring. The cellar was naturally rather soggy and the floor above was held up with a couple of large beams and some large rocks.
It came with a new build house carcass opposite.
On the side of the drive was a filled in brick built bread oven, when removing it we found a salamandar. Up the incline was a cave, in the cave my dad found a bullet.
The area was well known for its resistance efforts.
I miss going there. I inherited half when he died, but couldn't face going back because I didn't want to change the memories I had.

@Gingaaarghpussy
We have the stone kitchen sink that drains outside. Made a feature of it shelves above and below.
Our house has the hamlets water well along our boundary wall we all use it to water plants, got the big trough with flat edges to rub clothes against, planted the trough up with lavender.
Had one of these hooks above the fire to hang pots from and swivel from the flames. So much history and features.
The women folk certainly had a hard life back then.

That should be an inglenook fireplace.
I think whoever lived at my dads, when the bread oven was working, baked all the bread for the hamlet.

@Gingaaarghpussy yes it is. Made ours into a indoor open grill, the chimney has a great pull for smoke.
The back has an oven you access from outside via a stone lean-too we store our firewood there now.
Owners put their casserole type food in there to heat, as you’ll know the fire was the only source of heat & cooking, there’s been a Boulangerie in our village (1km) for two+ centuries 1898 going by their lintel engraving.
Very interesting these old buildings and what treasures they have.

Not an old house (1980s) but I bought my house off my Nan after my Grandad died; she wanted to move to a retirement flat.

She left the garage full of Grandad's stuff not sorted out.

My grandparents had bought the house as the housing estate was being built.
It turned out that my Grandad had gone to the building sites after dark and 'liberated' the items he wanted such as wood, cables, rope, bricks etc!!
There was actually a pile of planks that he picked up hidden behind the garage, and in the garage were items he'd made with the wood such as a garden chair & a waste bin, which I still have.

Bumping this thread as I think it's so fascinating (and a brilliant distraction from the times)!

Our house is a townhouse built in 1987 but unfortunately nothing too exciting as of yet. Although we are still renovating so maybe something will turn up! So far all we have discovered in one of the attics is a scalectrix set, some projector slides of what looks like landscapes from holidays and hundreds of bibles (the past owner was a vicar!)

That should be 1897 - not 1987!!!

My grandparents house was ancient . Not sure how old the current structure is but there had been a settlement there since 1200s now down to 3 houses in the middle of nowhere . There's not even road access . You have to cross a river
I know they found children's shoes and coins in the walls from 1600 / 1700s when renovating
And when they replaced the roof the huge stone tiles had been fixed on with animal bones

Andante those signs could have been worth a tidy little sum, I'm afraid 😟

Halsall yes it’s annoying and they would have made a nice and unusual picture.
It never occurred to me that they would disappear - I’m more careful now if we have builders.

I've absolutely loved this post and its threads. Thank you OP

@scrowy

Would you ever go into the cellar at all?

I have a lovely treasure we found in the eaves of a chalet my parents owned in a village in the French Alps, near Evian (sadly now sold after my parents died).

The owner of the chalet prior to my parents' purchase of it had been the manageress of a hotel in the village. She had kept this exercise book from 1942, in which she had recorded a list which appears to be the hotel meal plans and budget; all written in the most exquisite handwriting. I love it.