Storey Time

One Storey;

The bungalow was built just on the northern edge of the town. That is the current edge of the town which had expanded significantly in the post war and more modern period with an estate of commuter housing. A hundred years earlier the same location was well out of town, more rural than urban. Then, opposite stood the railway station, a good walk from the town centre. Now, opposite a trackless station building, with a new lease of life as a printers workshop. The land for the bungalow had been cheap on locational factors. It was also a strange wedge shaped parcel of land, narrow road frontage and opening out, long and bulbous. The longest boundary will have been close and parallel to the old railway line that Mr Beeching considered unviable. Excavations for the bungalow  foundations threw up a good supply of lumps of coal, perhaps falling from theladen tender of the constant stream of steam trains in the heyday of rail travel. Nothing else impeded the rapid construction of the bungalow. Some years later the owners considered the attachment of a conservatory on the inward facing rear elevation. Plans were drawn up, approved and quotations obtained for the work. The trenches for the dwarf walling were hand dug at first, close to the bungalow and then a JCB was brought in to continue the scraping and gouging of the clay soil. Progress was good but then the driver of the excavator signalled frantically that something was wrong. The bucket had broken through the crust of the site to reveal a hole. A test brick thrown in took some time to impact below. The surface was carefully scraped away to reveal not a hole but a chasm. The whole part of the inner site had been but a thin dome of soil beneath which was the remains of the Town Gas Works. Letters of enquiry were sent to Solicitors and the Council. The plant had certainly existed but was never documented or mapped. The only townsperson who remembered the burning of coal and production of gas in that part of the town  had died only weeks before. There was no redress through Law . It took about thirty tipper lorry loads of rubble to fill the hole before a raft foundation could be built to support the planned structure. Sitting out in the conservatory on a pleasantly warm evening watching the wildlife on the course of the old railway line was not really enough to compensate for the cost and stress of its manifestation .

Storey Two

The chalet style house looked good as I pulled up outside. Built in the 1970’s it had been newly renovated and refurbished and this cosmetic effect had taken perhaps 25 years off its appearance. My database had a record that it had been purchased just 6 months ago and for a price which clearly indicated that it must have been in quite a state of dereliction or abandonment. The proud new owner welcomed me in and gave me the grand tour. My visit was to appraise and value the house for a bank with the intention of releasing some of the equity achieved from the investment of renovation. The resurrection of the house had been a good one. I gave an opinion of where I thought the value was now and the owner was evidently pleased that his speculative venture had paid a healthy dividend. We got to talking all things property market. Then the owner asked if the demand for and value of a property could be affected by an untimely death in that property. I reassured him that this was not usually a problem as local memory was often short on such things. He came back hesitantly asking what about if there had been two untimely deaths and at the same time. I stalled with an answer which was fortunate as he gushed forth with the whole story. His house had previously been occupied by an elderly lady and her grown up son. The pair were inseperable, very reclusive and not a  little bit eccentric. Untidy garden, grubby always drawn net curtains, flaking paintwork, the same black spotted sticky fly paper in the porch. The sorts of things that kept the local children well away. One Christmas morning the pair had fallen out in a big way over who was to take the first bath. By heavy handed accident, it was thought, the mother was pushed over, impacted her head and died. The son, distressed and distraught then took his own life. That was a chapter in the history of the house. A couple of years later I noticed an advertisement for the sale of the house in the Thursday property supplement. Within a few days there was a sold sticker across the agents board. I had been right that local memory was often short on infamous events. I would not however like to be the first to break the news to the new owner particularly if they had any firm position on manslaughter and suicide on their own doorstep.

Storey Three

Three storey house. That description met one of my multiple criteria for a prospective purchase. A good number of the other boxes were also ticked for location, 4 bed rooms, newly fitted kitchen and bathroom , games room, decent sized garden and a garage. I rang the selling agents to enquire about a viewing. My own house was sold and I was in a strong position to proceed if I liked the property. Holding the line, the agent rang through to the vendor and after a few cross referenced conversations a mutually acceptable date and time to view was agreed. I took away a single sheet brochure for the property, minus a photograph as it was a very new listing and the particulars were still in a draft unapproved format. The approach to the property was through a newish development of four detached houses along a hard surfaced but private status roadway. The cul de sac terminated at a set of high metal gates set within a high perimeter fence more reminiscent of a prison than a private dwelling. I had to get out of the car to buzz for entry. I drove through into what could only be described as a compound. The only building was a squat cast concrete rectangle of only one story height under a flat reinforced slab roof and with a vented tower atop. The owner met me at the door and commenced a tour of the property. It was indeed three storeys of rooms but two of these were wholly subterranean having been purpose built in the 1970’s as the command bunker for the Local Authority in the event of a nuclear conflict. The tour was interesting and informative but coming away I was more than sure that bunker survivalist living was not at the top of my property shopping list.