I'm a little bored today so had nothing better to do than gaze through the windows. :-(
I was looking at the houses opposite me and noticed just below the guttering the brickwork is set with a fancy architecture and on my side of the street its just a flat sandstone block in the same area below the guttering.
Why is this? anyone got the answer.
-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite
Different builders?
Ran out of money after the first row?
They're the posh side? ;-)
In my Victorian street in London all the pairs of semis are slightly different although occupying the same sized plots. Bay windows or not. Ground floor only one. Different stone mouldings. Different bricks. some flat roof rear additions, some sloping. So different builders. Many differences on the insides, too.
Ooh, I don't know - maybe there's nothing on the telly? you haven't got a magazine or book to read? Your broadband connection's gone down? Could be any number of reasons really...
Dvaid
==================== Snob value.
Cic.
The fancy houses cost more, yours had the block replaced later, the fancy arcitecture manufacturer put their prices up or went out of business, the fellow who did the carving retired or died, fashions changed, no-one noticed the fancy bit so the builder cut the expense, the fancy bit was on the builder's own house, the fancy bit was on the house opposite the builder's own house so that he could see it, putting the fancy bits it broke the sandstone, Part Q of the regulations demanded that the block be a plain flat device ...
It may be what was available at the time.
On out street, one side was built pre-war, the other post-war, both to the same floor plans. However, there are differences.
The pre-war houses have a row of soldiers over the windows and the post-war ones have concrete lintels. The bricks in the pre-war houses are harder and smoother and have stood the test of time much better (they are also much harder to drill/cut!). The same applies to the roofing tiles, none of the pre-war houses have had to be re-tiled so far, but almost all the post-war roofing tiles have been replaced and those that have'nt need to be. The quality of the timber in the pre-war houses is also far superior to the timber used in the post-war houses.
I happen to know the story of my street. The builder started at the "town" side at the main road end and started building. As it progressed, he got more and more ambitious. We have one of the few terraced houses built in
1909. It then goes onto semis, that get larger and larger. By 1911, he was coming back the other way on the country side of the road. By the time he got opposite us again, he was building large semis with 3 receptions and preconverted lofts. Clearly the original houses were profitable enough for his increasing ambition.Christian.
Interesting subject. My parent's house (not victorian) and others nearby are similar, but very slightly different. E.g. the division between master bed / "box" room varies affecting the sizing of the rooms (not a later alteration) Apparently some builders liked to express their individuality. The house my parents live in is bigger than all the others nearby. Apparently it was the house that the builder lived in ! Also an local district has big victorian houses on all the corners, and terraced up the street. The factory bosses lived on the corners, the workers in terraces ! Simon.
In mine, a Victorian semi, the stairs to the attic room are conventional and the same as the others.
Next door (the other half of the semi) has a door in a wall and open stairs up to the attic.
It's simply that you live on the wrong side of the tracks!
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