To feel desperately sad at my old family home being demolished

[Fingerscrossed2015]

My parents sold our family home (where I lived from birth until my 20s) many years ago, and now live in a flat. Although I have no intentions of ever living in my old town again, I used to drive past my old house every time I visited my family and felt a lot of happy nostalgia for it.

Our old family house had an unusually large garden and, when I last drove past, I saw that the house has been demolished and the plot has been subdivided. Three smaller houses have been built in its stead.

I feel bizarrely really emotional about this and am not sure why. I keep thinking about my grandmother (who I was incredibly close to) and the fact that the echoes of her voice in our kitchen would still be reverberating around the old house but now will have been lost.

Is it normal to feel so emotional about ‘just’ a house? Has anyone else ever felt like this?

DH’s aunt had a house on a large plot of land. She looked into selling some of the garden as she got older, but was told it wasn’t possible for access reasons.

After she died, her house and one next door were both sold by the beneficiaries of the houses. There are now several very expensive houses on that plot. We don’t go by very often, but it gives me a pang when we do.

I get this. Luckily I don't live anywhere near it but similar happened with my grandparents old house and I'm determined never to return there again. Maybe not rational but I think I'd find it really upsetting to see what the space would look like now. Sometimes you can remember a place so vividly that it's strange to think it no longer exists.

My Mum had our house demolished after my Dad died and sold the plot to developers. They built three nasty executive homes on the land and got rid of the orchard and all the trees. I’ve never been back since my Mum left. She didn’t want anyone else to live there.

I haven't had this experience as the houses are the same still but I do go past my nans old house with a feeling of nostalgia and it feels weird I can't pop in there now.

My dad still lives in the house I grew up in and even though I've lived in my current house just as long now my dad's house still feels like home. He has a council property so once he dies or moves I think I will feel very emotional about it.

Yes, I know exactly what you mean. It happened to me, fairly recently. It is indeed very strange to remember a place so well and know that it doesn't exist. It hurts.

YANBU. Although this has never happened to me, a lot of the places I used to work in have been pulled down and it does feel odd that they are no longer there. Whenever I move home or jobs, I always take lots of photos!

Thanks everyone. Yeah, I had a bit of a cry over it and I’m sure my kids now think I’m mad (even though they were very kind)!

I think the reason it struck such a chord was because, in my head, it was more than just a house; it was my childhood. It held so many memories. Seeing it demolished felt like I was losing a bit of my old life too.

I have a feeling this may happen to our current house at some point in the future. It is a very dull 60s chalet bungalow but on a large plot within a private estate with the most amazing views. You could easily demolish it and replace it with a lovely large 'architect-designed' one-off modern house.
For this reason I am more hesitant than my husband to spend money improving ours that much.

Yes absolutely! My parents had a house built on a large plot that was previously an orchard of a big house. When it sold (55 years later) developers bought it, the house next door and half the (very large garden) of the house the other side. Now there are 15 houses on all of that. All the apple/pear/plum trees are gone.
As kids it was a great place to play - masses of trees, loads of wildlife: foxes, deer, badgers etc. But it is nice that only us ever lived there.

I live in the same street as the house I spent 30 years of my life in. My parents also now live in a flat. The person who bought the house has turned it into a mess. It really saddens me to drive / walk past each day but my mum doesn't care so much - its only bricks, is what she says. But interestingly enough she's upset at what happened to gran's old house so I guess its a childhood nostalgia thing?

Yes I felt very emotional selling my mum’s house ten years ago when she had to go into a home. It was my childhood home and she had lived there for the best part of 60 years. She died 7 years ago but it still feels weird that I can’t just go there, let myself in, find her sitting by the fire in the lounge and make us both a cup of tea.

Totally understandable x

Maybe it is a childhood home thing. My own DP are now selling the house we moved to when I was a teenager and I'm not fussed at all about that.

When I get sad about such things DH likes to explain that time isn't really linear, it's just that we can only perceive it that way. Everything that has ever happened and everything that is going to happen are all still happening now. You are still playing in your old garden. It makes sense when he explains it, he's read Stephen Hawking books etc! Anyway it gives me comfort, I revisit in my head and imagine my Grampa is still in the garden and my Granny making pancakes, a bit like those Google Street view pics where people can see their Mum at the door when in real life she's gone... Hope this makes a bit of sense.

My grandparents house was a holiday cottage for a while but I couldn't bring myself to stay in it.

I would feel devastated if my childhood home was demolished. It’s currently more or less derelict, even though the people who own it (no one lives in it) are very active in the garden and outbuildings there. It breaks my heart.