Tell me about your historical houses?

[starrychime]

I will be very very [henvy] but love the history of old houses. Anyone got a very old place (over 100 years say?) with interesting historical stories?

Ours is over 250 years old.

But was an old cow barn. Not so interesting then unless you are interested in cows

Ours is over 300 years old...it's been a bakehouse and was also where the local doctor held his surgery for the villagers every fortnight before and after WW2.

mine is a converted Victorian School House, built in 1846 by a trust set up in the memory of the adult son of a local family after his death.
Interestingly we have a great wadge of documents relating to the property and garden. the garden originally belonged to the church (primitive methodist which is next door) and details of the cottage that was on that land.

ours is 18th c, in a village, used to be a farmhouse. We have a lot of old records and it seems to have been almost entirely lived in by men, ie several men at a time rather than a family. There are all sorts of nails and hooks in the beams where things used to be hung up.

My parents have a lovely Georgian townhouse and stuff that happened there includes:
-in the 18th century the man who lived there had a young African boy as a servant (or rather, slave ), as was fashionable then, who died of fever after a few years
-a family of 5 boys and a girl grew up there before the First World War. All the boys died in the war
-in the early 18th century the person who lived there solved the mystery of the theft of some cabbages which were taking place in the garden of a countess.

Ours was owned by a wealthy local businessman who built it in 1840.

As the family lost money sections of land were sold off. The last female owners bequeathed the area behind our house (beyond our garden) to the local community as a permanent park/playground.

For a while it was used as a vets (around the 2nd WW).
It gradually deteriorated until it was bought about 12 years ago when some structural refurbishment was done.
We bought it 7 years ago and completed the internal repairs to the basement and installed the iron stair access to the basement at the front of the house.

The nice features still inside include the tiled butlers pantry with all the cabinets where the family silver was kept. The fireplace in the 2nd sitting room was fab, the marble was scratched where someone onbviously spent years sitting next to it and scratching a poker ot other implement against obe side. We tried to restore it but the whole thing fell apart when we tried.