Tall Stories

50 years living in the same house.

Quite an achievement.

Some may say that given the average period of occupancy between house moves at 7 years, or as it used to be perceived before the current recession and market downturn, this may be seen by some as an indication of a lack of aspiration or upward mobility.

Others may regard it as financial foolhardiness in not selling up and reinvesting with the regularity that the likes of Spencer, Alsop and Beeney advocate in order to surf that wave of equity in property.

However, if a house purchased in 1963 was seen as that much alluded to "forever" home and could meet easily all of the requirements of a family at its different stages of development then why bother to even contemplate a move elsewhere?.

That was the case with the property that I visited today.

It fronts a very busy main road corridor which carries a good few thousand vehicles in any cycle of daily activity to and from a large City.

It is exceptional and remarkable in that it is built over 5 original floors and the block formed by two others in the terrace is the only surviving example of its type of the wartime bombing, Town Planning and Redevelopment that has ravaged this particular urban environment.

Built in 1890 the property will have at that time been on the very edge of city. It now has that feeling of being more centrally located with extensive rooftop views from the top floor and not an open field or tract of land in sight.

The first occupants, when new, were evidently affluent Professional types with all that went with that lifestyle including live-in servants, a lower ground floor kitchen, scullery, pantry and laundry and a coach house in the rear garden.

The current and longstanding owners were selling up because the size and running costs were just too great for them in their retirement years.

In between the wars the property was carved up into 6 flats and letting rooms and this was how the property was taken on in the early 1960's. As well as providing ample space for a young and growing family it appears that the room layout was retained and provided a good source of income. The experience of being landlords under the same roof does not seem to have been too traumatic and with only two out of multiple tenants over half a century being troublesome.

There are indications of the original grandeur.

The fireplaces include tremendous marble edifices which could as easily form a headstone or epitaph monument. Covings are just about hanging in there against the force of gravity and its debilitating effect on old and weak horsehair bonded plasterwork. The extent of partitioning of the largest rooms, originally billiard table or small ballroom sized, can be seen from the interruption of the deep plaster cornices above lightweight and flimsy walls.

In the surface water flooding of late June 2007 the lower ground floor was inundated but was left to dry out in the natural process with no bothering of the insurance company. It has recovered well with none of the high tide marks, fungus or fustiness that inevitably accompany a period of a building being under water.

The owners were adamant that it was not a basement because it had full height windows and a level ground point of entry.

The ground or upper ground level was approached by once grand dressed stone steps with an ornate vine leaf motif wrought iron handrail. These features had seen better days with a bit of a list to starboard and a fine suspension of corroded metal in the eddying airflow around the front elevation.

Staircases and high vaulted lightwells permeated the centre of the house. The bannisters had a deep lustre to the woodwork where palms and fingers had grasped on ascending and descending over the last 122 years.

Over their period of ownership the now elderly couple had moved about between the floors and suites of rooms as their demands changed. They now resided on the first floor but only because it had the best staircasing on which to fix the runners for the chairlift.

In its heyday the posh occupiers had mainly lived on the first floor, above the densest smog zone and well away from the rising damp which was prevalent but generally disguised by fancy wall hangings and distemper.

The two top floors were singularly lacking in quality and style but then again they were purposely the accommodation for those in domestic service who did not expect any favours, airs or graces. Ceilings were lower, no decorative fireplaces and with smaller windows giving a restricted outlook.

Chauffeur, cook, housekeeper and skivvy would occupy these quarters and be grateful for it.

I was thrown in my thoughts temporarily by the sight of two artificial Christmas trees ready assembled in a corner. There existed a perpetual festive season in a part of the house now rarely visited and this had a certain attraction. A permanent Santa's Grotto.

At the top of the house, nestled tightly under the roof pitch there were indications of  leaks to the slate covering, stains on the redundant chimney breasts and an air of abandonment. The pigeons had prized a way in around a broken skylight claiming the space for their own.

I was glad that I has been accompanied on the tour by the more agile one of the couple as by now I was a bit disorientated as to where and on what floor I was.

At five storeys up the view was broad with the Whiting Works of the nearest town just discernible at some 9 miles distance and the safety lights of the suspension bridge, at similar distance, blinking meekly in the low cloud. I could feel that first uneasiness of vertigo usually reserved for trips up a church bell tower or peering over a cliff edge.

The couple had obviously been very happy in that cavernous property but reluctantly they accepted that they were no longer able to cope. A small bungalow in the suburbs was their destination if the sale progressed.

As for the future of the house?

It would imminently be ripped apart, renovated and refurbished as essential preparation for the next century of occupation and use. Call it progress.