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A Rightmove gem

37 replies

widgitfidgit · 03/05/2024 10:11

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129590375

Love this house, however it seems overpriced. Also not sure who would buy it, seems too big for your average family and not an area where it could work as a b&b/ guesthouse

OP posts:
Iamtheoneinten · 03/05/2024 12:56

The side elevation looks like it should have more windows, looks odd.

SallyWD · 03/05/2024 12:57

Overpriced?? That would be 1.5 million where I live (and I'm up north!). I love it.

Trainbother · 03/05/2024 13:00

I like it and I think there is a market for too big family homes as status symbols, but they'd usually come with more land. This one is very close to the road.

Trainbother · 03/05/2024 13:03

It could work well for a family that needs a granny flat. One of the downstairs bathrooms could be a small kitchen and move the "main" living room upstairs.

Riverlee · 03/05/2024 13:17

Very pretty looking house and quite liked the inside.

Then I saw the garden and it was a deal breaker. Too small for the size of house, and overlooked. I’d expect a lovely country lawn , with mature trees around, maybe a pond etc. Not a suburban suburbs semi-detached garden. .

(Not that I have almost a million to spend on a house)

Bigminnie1 · 03/05/2024 13:26

SallyWD · 03/05/2024 12:57

Overpriced?? That would be 1.5 million where I live (and I'm up north!). I love it.

It's roughly the same price as what my average 3 bed semi in London would go on the market for...
I like it!

Another2Cats · 03/05/2024 13:45

LindorDoubleChoc · 03/05/2024 12:46

I don't like it. It looks like it was originally a school or prison or some sort of institution?

I've just found it. Yes it did used to be a boarding school and was a much larger building before part burnt down in the 1980s. There were allegations of historic child abuse.

The property was built in 1834 (so it only just counts as Georgian - Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837) and was a boarding school for 50 children between the ages of 8 and 14 originally run by the Quakers. It was even noted that each child should have their own bed!

There is an interesting history of the school available online.

"The school was to be conducted with rigid economy, and its essential character was to be that of combining with religious and moral instruction, the education of children in useful knowledge, with the addition of extensive manual employment, chiefly in agriculture, with a view to diminishing the expenses of maintenance and education."

In the 1891 census, it shows there was the head master, four male and four female teachers between the ages of 14(!!) and 30. Nine female domestic staff (housekeeper, cook, laundress, kitchen maid etc)

There were 46 boys and 21 girls there as boarders.

The school shut down in 1934 and then in 1939 a boys Approved School was set up there by Liverpool Council. In 1973 it became a "Community Home with Education"

The school closed in the 1980s and then suffered a major fire that led to a large part of it being demolished with the bit now being for sale the only part left.

Part of the land was sold off for housing and there is now also a daycare centre on what used to be the playground.

From the 1990s onwards several former employees at the home were convicted of historic sexual abuse.

Given it's history, that is not somewhere I would really want to live.

widgitfidgit · 03/05/2024 14:13

Wow great sleuthing! Interesting history but does put you off the place

OP posts:
Another2Cats · 03/05/2024 14:14

UneTasse · 03/05/2024 10:40

I don't understand it at all. It MUST be a new build, surely? The rooms have chimneybreasts though. But the doors and windows are all modern, the brickwork is pristine, and the room proportions don't seem right.

Obviously the furniture and bathrooms are appalling, but that's not a big deal - it just feels like to ACTUALLY have a Georgian house you'd be spending as much to replace everything as you would if you bought a wreck.

...
From a bit of nosing on google, it was built in the early 1900's, and sold in 2006 for £172k, and probably in very poor condition.

"From a bit of nosing on google, it was built in the early 1900's, and sold in 2006 for £172k, and probably in very poor condition."

You're right, I just noticed that on the old Ordnance Survey maps.

For anyone else, that house is not shown on the 1907 Ordnance Survey map (or any earlier map) but is shown on the 1928 map.

It was built adjacent to the original Georgian school building, probably as an expansion (or maybe a nicer place for the

In the 1980s there was a fire and the original Georgian school building was then demolished leaving just the early 20th century house that we see today.

For the estate agents to say that this is a Georgian house "... this imposing and substantial Georgian detached property" is totally wrong.

Another2Cats · 03/05/2024 16:54

Totally off-topic but I was just intrigued by the story of this house, so did a bit of digging.

So, the existing house was partly built around 1834 and partly after 1912.

In the main photo the part on the right of the door with the two rows of four windows is part of the original building. The front door and the bow fronted part to the left were built sometime after 1912 on what had previously been the "girls' playground".

There is an interesting series of photos showing life at the school in the 1920s/30s. One of those photos shows the school buildings at the time. The building currently for sale can clearly been seen at the far left hand:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/149979090@N03/34707105884/in/photostream/

Penketh School / Friends School

This is an archive of photographs from the Friends School Penketh in the late 1920's early 30's. They were from an archive belonging to Ruth McKee Student teacher.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/149979090@N03/34707105884/in/photostream

widgitfidgit · 03/05/2024 17:06

Wow you would hardly recognise it

OP posts:
UneTasse · 04/05/2024 15:30

@Another2Cats Thank you so much!

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