My 1930s house just doesn't look 1930s - why?

[Devora]

I've moaned on here before about how my 1930s semi has had every original feature ripped out. When I first saw it I thought it was 1950s. But a neighbour argued with me the other day that it COULDN'T be 1930s because it has no bay windows etc, and it got me thinking.

I know it must be 1930s because the deeds say it was built in 1930. My neighbours (the adjoining bit of the semi) still have some original features that are clearly 30s: doors etc. But the frontage doesn't look remotely 30s. Why would this be? Could it have suffered bad bomb damage in the war, and had to have the front rebuilt? (I know there were bombs in our street.) Any ideas on how I could find out? Are there any clues on the inside that would indicate that the whole thing is indeed younger than 1930? (I'm aware features like doors could be added at any time.)

(I know this isn't important, and yes I do have better things to do with my time, but it's like a brain worm niggling away at me.)

Hi devora

You can find out from plans of the street if your house was bomb damaged, your town Hall or planning dept should be able to help you.

do you have high ceilings and any other original features that might give a clue?

What is your front garden like? Also you say your neighbours is the same but are all the other houses on the street similar?

Not every 1930s house had bay windows. Yes they are typical of that decade but just like today there were a variety of different styles.

You wouldn't think it that unusual that someone building a house today built it in Georgian style or Victorian style so the same would apply to a 1930s house.

My house is 1930s and has no bay windows.

I suppose bay windows were just an example - it doesn't look 30s in any way!

morethan, it has a small square front garden and a large garden at the back. No high ceilings. Large picture windows (now uPVC). Front door in to small hallway (in neighbours; ours has been knocked through so you go straight into front room). Decent sized kitchen beyond. Three bedrooms (including one box room) and bathroom upstairs. No particular clues there, I don't think.

It's a very long street, and the vast majority of the houses are about 1900 - all built within a few years of each other, I think, as part of the turn of the century suburban expansion.

Good tip to get onto the town hall, morethan - I'll follow that up.

Our street is similar by the sounds of it, in that there are lots of different dates of house builds.
i too thought it could be due to the war and houses being bombed and then rebuilt but the explanation was surprising.

If you are leasehold it could e due to the land owners buying the land and building at different times.
We have a row of Edwardian followed by Victorian and in between some modern, would guess at 1950's bungalows.

The difference in purchasing the land was due to the old mill owners family selling certain plots, or in some cases the church.

It's really interesting when you look at the history of your house.
Even newish builds are built on land that has history.
I'm boring though and find it really interesting.

Well, I've just been online and I can't believe how quickly I found the original planning application for our house! - 1931.

It does seem that yes, the frontage is 1930s. Quite a plain, modest house even then, much smaller and humbler than the rest of the road. But the only real difference between then and now is down to replacing the old windows and the old brick porch with uPVC versions. [eyes narrowed, speculating on how much of a difference it might make if I reversed that process...]

The only other big difference then and now is that both the houses have knocked through between the kitchen and the dining room - the kitchen in the original plan is 6ft x 8ft! And that includes a side door, so they wouldn't have had much cupboard space.

Absolutely fascinating (to me) and I had no idea it would be so easy to find that. Thanks Mumsnet!

Interesting also that pretty much all the other houses (over 300 of them - long street!) were built between 1880-1910, and most of them 1880-1900. The place was one big building site. I bet they all sucked their teeth when these upstarts arrived in 1931 to lower the tone with their naff little semis.

Now, does anyone know how I find out WHO has lived in my house?

I'm intrigued. How did you find the planning application online? I'd love to find it for our house. ITa an edwardian semi about 1914 ish I think.

I wish there were pictures in existence of my house over the last 100 years. Would love to see it at every stage. It's a mosh mash now of every decade.
Is it possible to find out who has lived in a house before?

I went to the 'local history' section of the Council website, and there they all were (who knew?!). Just put in a search for our street and 70-odd planning applications came up (so most not on there; we were lucky). It had the original drawings there, too, which I've just printed off for closer study.

For 1930s, your best bets are the electoral rolls and street directories, which were slowly replaced by phone directories.

1915 onwards is tricky to do online because a lot of stuff isn't yet out of copyright, while being Before Google.

If you PM me the address, I can have a quick peep on Ancestry for your electoral rolls. If no luck there, you need your local library or archive.

Thanks pm sent.

Ancestry is a brilliant resource, if you have your last occupiers on your deeds or who bought the house originally, you may get lucky and have a whole history. This happened to us so we didn't have to look much further.
It doesn't always say their occupation but the census will show this.
If you have a name and of course you know the address you can search bmd records without need for a census.

Just to say that my parents' mid 1920s house (purchased in the mid 1960s and owned by them till sold in 2012) was next door to one side of a pair of semis (but not the one attached to theirs, IYSWIM) that suffered bomb damage in WW2 and you would never have known it if it weren't for an article/photo in an old pamphlet printed by the local paper at the time....oh, and the fact my parents' surveyor mentioned it at the time if purchase. It had been rebuilt with such attention to detail it was indistinguishable from the rest of the houses in the road.....

Very fascinating to find out such interesting history! Makes me all the more keen to discover stuff about our new period home :@)

Now, I've just looked up the planning application for my house which is dated 1937.
However my house wasn't actually built until 1947, due to the war. I know that for a fact as the date and the initials of the person who finished it is in the attic!
I also know that one end of the street was built pre war and our house matches that end of the street.

Could it be a similar situation?

This is such an interesting thread that house defo. sounds 1930's by the very description. During the war people were encouraged to grow their own fruit and veg. when my parents bought our family house in 1949 there were still loads of fruit planted in the second half of the long back garden, it was really lovely

That's interesting, Pipbin. However, I am pretty certain it was built in the 1930s because my memory from when we bought it was that was what it said on the deeds. (Clearly my memory wasn't perfect, as I remembered 1930 and it can't have been built before 1931, but still...)

Also, no reason to think there was a time lapse as I have now seen the original drawings and they are definitely my house! Just without the uPVC. So even if was built later, it was to built to the design approved in 1931.

waving, the garden is indeed a long strip - 90ft I think. The neighbours is larger - apparently there used to be a lane running between the two to the dairy at the back, but then the neighbour bought that land. I love the thought of the garden being full of cabbages and radishes, especially during the war years.

The other day I was watching a property programme (think it was Homes Under the Hammer) and the owner was proudly saying she had ripped out the old Andersen shelter. Maybe I'm overly sentimental, but I thought that was a shame... it would have been cherished here!

General info about censuses: 1911 is the most recent available at the moment, as they are kept private for 100 years.

1921 census is due out in 2012. It was taken in June, delayed from April by the strikes.

1931 census was burnt to a cinder in 1942 - embarrassingly, possibly by a cigarette end from one of the fire watchers guarding it from enemy action...

That's the E&W 1931 census that was destroyed: Scotland's was safely in Edinburgh.

Northern Ireland had its census in 1926, not 1931. No, I don't know either.

I was just about to say that your 'decent sized kitchen' didn't sound very 30s, ours was approx the size of a postage stamp!

Little bit of historical background

That's a great website, SorryToDisturbYou!

Well, thanks for your help, everyone. I've been looking at old voter registration records but strangely none of them list houses 1-190. I can only think that the top half of our very long street used to have another name. Or maybe it was in another ward. Anyway, I'm too tired to go on now and it's clear I am NOT skilled at this stuff! I'll try again tomorrow.

No, it's just your street is split across multiple wards, Devora.

It's very tedious; you have to page through the electoral roll trying to find the ward with your bit of the street.

Many details in my PMs!

Ugh, clearly I'm tired too! For no, read yes!