1780 Ideal Home Exhibition

It was time to venture into the 1780 built cottage.

There was no front door with entry being gained through a narrow passage way from the street front.

The floor to ceiling height was limited but then again the average stature of the first generation of occupants will have been determined by their early years development, the uncommon availability of decent nutrition and if they actually lived long enough to become a tenant or property owner.

Under foot were large flagstones progressively eroded by a constant footfall over the centuries. A route through the dead centre of the walkway had worn a shallow depression, smooth and regular. This was dictated by the position of the large timber beam forming the arch itself likely to have been salvaged from a shipwreck on the treacherous sandbanks on the main estuary only a mile downstream on the man made cutting of the canal.

The village grew up following the excavation of the navigable waterway which revealed that the heavy clay soils which has otherwise been a curse in the marshland areas were ideal for brick and tile manufacturing. In a roundabout way the small tight group of cottages represented one of the first industrial settlements in the country.

It is a tight left turn into another low door opening but this leads into the heart of the house. The hallway is dark and cool which is as authentic as you can get to the late 18th Century living conditions. The only missing fittings being wall sconces to hold oily, smokey candles.

Most cottages for workers of that period were one up and one down at best in terms of accommodation, therefore a large living kitchen and a climb up a ladder to a sleeping gallery tight into the eaves. Everyone lived together, mother, father and an almost infinite number of offspring along with the precious livestock. The production of steam and moisture from man and beast posed a great threat to the habitability of the building but at least the dampness prevented the additional threat of an outbreak of fire to some extent.

This was evidently a cottage befitting a more important clay-pit worker in that there was a best front room as well as the family kitchen and two upstairs bedrooms. The role of a bathroom and toilet was taken up by a pot which would be emptied in the morning on waste ground on the periphery of the village, an area often referred to as Muck Garth in most of the larger settlements in the region.

I found the staircase in a thin cupboard just off the hallway. Stooping down and crawling into the understairs void revealed the marvel of the rough crafted treads and risers supported on an elegant spine of timber. The wood was peppered with traces of boring insect and multiple layers of a now flaking paint intended to entomb the worms before they could develop wings and take flight leaving a small dusty haze of sawdust. The foot of the central spine was spongey and soft from the wicking up of moisture from the old quarry tile floor. The onset of rot and decay had been slow but under the demands of a modern lifestyle and heavy average body weights some form of patching repair would be essential to maintain stability.

Floorboards spanning the landing and bedrooms had a pronounced dip and sag but this had taken place over the lifetime of the cottage so that the strength and rigidity was not compromised. House purchasers demand such things to be sound and true as they have been conditioned to expect this. I have to spend a large amount of time defending sloping floors as being sound and in character in an older property. It only takes a small tapered wedge under furniture to provide a level seating.

The cottage had done well to keep some of its authentic sash cord and traditional Yorkshire sliding casements in spite of their inherent disadvantages of rattling in the slightest breeze and leaking heat through draught prone gaps. The glass, hand floated is too thin to be effectively measured and is pockmarked with air bubbles and flaws. There is just the roof space left to investigate and this my favourite part of an old house being invariably original and well preserved.

The main timber supports are straight from a tree, rough hewn and bearing the scars of bark beetle and old branch offshoots. Better calibre late 18th century roof construction featured crafted rafters and purlins with roman numerals for assembly on site in a logical manner. A few of the apprentices took a quiet moment as an opportunity to carve their own initials as a permanent commemoration of their back breaking work.

 In this cottage the roof had reached the end of its days based on the almost perfect daylight conditions when there should have been an expectation of dank, darkness. I left the property with a large wad of notes on its condition and what would be required to return it to a condition to last for the next two centuries.

In many respects it was just perfect.