The Secret History of Our Victorian House
This is a sponsored post. I was gifted our house history by My Houstory.
Our house was built 145 years ago by a glove buyer called George, an Essex boy born and bred who moved up to south Manchester and began dabbling in property management. George sold our house to Mary Jane, a wealthy Victorian lady who lived here with two other ladies, called Fanny and Mary. This must have been a slightly controversial living situation - Victorian ladies weren’t typically supposed to swan around owning large properties in their own right. Not Mary Jane though, who clearly didn’t give a monkeys for what other people thought.
Mary Jane sold to a large family with six children - Rose, Frederick, Florence, George, Ethel and Jessie - who lived here for nearly twenty years. The father was a tea merchant, and his sons also worked in the family business. During the time the family lived in our house, the children grew up, and most of them got married and had children of their own. It’s a funny feeling to sit here at my kitchen island writing this blog post, thinking about long-ago Jessie running around in our garden, and maybe even sneakily climbing a tree when no one was listening - and Rose and Florence preparing for their wedding days - and a bushel of grandchildren crawling round on the floor just like all my babies did.
I wonder Mr tea merchant stood in front of this fireplace while various nervous young men came to ask for the hand in marriage of his daughters…
Next up - Edward (a linen merchant), his wife Elizabeth, and their two domestic servants, Maggie and Sarah Jane. Here’s some unexpected gossip - Elizabeth was the widow of Essex boy George, who built the house in the first place. It’s a small world…
We’re pretty sure this bath is original to the house. It’s ridiculously heavy so the chances that someone removed the original and hauled a identical version upstairs through choice is pretty slim. There’s a decent chance therefore that Elizabeth used this actual bath - how crazy is that?
In the 30s, a German family moved into our house - Felix, a foreign correspondent by profession, his wife Mary Isabella, and a large African grey parrot. The parrot doesn’t appear on the census records, of course… more’s the pity… but it was advertised for sale by the family while they were living in the house, so it can be assumed that was resident here for a period of time at least! Mary was a music teacher - I think she would have approved of our piano.
In the late 40s, newly-weds Winnie and Larry moved in. Larry was a Canadian soldier, and Winnie may well have been a GI bride. Winnie’s father was an architect specialising in modern concrete buildings, including the empire theatre in Oldham. I wonder what he would have made of our contemporary white render extension. Winnie and Larry had two children, Lawrence and Micheline - two more babies to toddle around our house, slowly learn to climb up and down the stairs while holding tight to the bannisters, and sleep in the bedrooms that my own daughters sleep in today.
Our second biggest bedroom, inhabited by our eldest girl. Lovely to think that Rose or Freddie or Florence or Lawrence slept in here - or maybe it was reserved for guests and the children slept in the smaller rooms? Either way, I’m sure it’s seen a lot of mischief over the years.
At some stage after Winnie and Larry moved out, the house was converted into flats or bedsits. We believe the house was restored back into a single family home by Albert, from whom we bought the house seven years ago.
And now we live here - a Portuguese South African English family, with three daughters and three Jack Russells (but no parrots). I hope one day our daughters will get married from this house, just like Rose and Florence did over 100 years ago, and that we too will have a good handful of chubby grandchildren crawling round on our painstakingly restored original floorboards that so many families have walked across over the years. So many friendly ghosts and memories of lives lived well.
I think this room would have been the original dining room. I’m sure many happy meals and gatherings have been held in here.
If it’s possible, I think I love our house even more now I know about all the people who lived here before us. I had a go at researching the history myself when we first moved in, but the amount of detail Maddy from My Houstory was able to find is incredible. I’ve shared a summary above, but Maddy was able to find loads and loads more, even photos of some of the people who lived here! which she presented in a lovely booklet bound with pretty leafy ribbon, along with a family tree. And best of all, she was able to unearth our house’s lost name. We no longer have our original gateposts, which would have had the name of the house inscribed on them - and we’re pretty much the only Victorian house on the street with no name. Sob, sob! But now, thanks to Maddy’s mad detective skills, our lovely old Victorian lady has been reunited with her long-lost, beautiful name.
If you live in a period property in England, Scotland or Wales, and would like a house history of your own, please email myhoustory@yahoo.com, or look up My Houstory on Facebook, Instagram or Etsy. They also make great gifts for friends and family - but get in quickly, her Christmas availability is booking up fast!
I’m giving away a My Houstory on my Instagram tonight, so please do check in then to enter.