17th century – Page 2 – Poshbird with Passion

How Strong is Wallpaper? and Other Questions

Can anyone who knows French/old houses, please help me?

I am working under the assumption that wallpaper cannot hold up a three-storey house: not even if there are five or more layers of it. I hope I am right, because:

I’ve been working in a first-storey bedroom we call the ‘big cupboard room’. At some point the room height has been reduced by about 100cm to borrow enough height to squeeze a room above it, leading to a low void, like an eaves cupboard. The room was originally the same height as the salon (390cm). The original moulded cornice is still visible within the void next to the later room on the second floor, and shows that the division between the bedroom and the ‘big cupboard’ is an original 17th Century feature (perhaps a salle de toilette?), and not a later change as we had assumed

(I only know this from crouching in this void, armed with a torch to get a better look at the cornices. A weird little space with a rough seat/bench built onto the wall, it contains huge cobwebs, a cast iron saucepan lid and a couple of very old mummified shallots. Strange? I thought so)

Into the void. Something’s hanging from the ceiling mid-pic. Only just noticed

How is your spacial awareness doing so far? I know, a diagram might help

Anyway, the original tall double doors are still in place in the ‘big cupboard room’ in keeping with a higher ceiling. But was the entire first floor of that ‘house’ once two high-ceilinged rooms with mouldings and tiled floors? This makes me wonder if it was not originally a house, but a commercial premises of some sort

Now the paper stripping comes in: the plaster in this butchered room is bulging along the adjoining wall to next door. A crack has broken through all the layers of wallpaper, and there are at least five, probably six layers (have I just answered my original question?)

I’ve removed some paper the original plaster shows an outline about 75cm square, by the looks of it, filled in before any of the layers of paper were applied. The rough filling is dropping out and someone has later (badly) skimmed over it. I scraped away to get a better view of the indent. I might have said that it was a window, but the house is part of a terrace of houses and this is an adjoining wall. Plus, a window would not be so close to the floor of this room and right up against the fireplace

It’s a terrible picture and I’ll try to get something better, but the top of the indent is roughly 1/4 of the way down and the bottom 3/4 of the way down the photo. The right edge lines up pretty much with the mantelpiece. The crack is not visible here

So what could this unwanted ‘feature’ be? It’s definitely original to the house

Things in the Roof

Slept in today and woke at 8.40 – probably due to having a proper pillow at last and the excitement of watching last night’s fantastic rugby game

I hung out for a bit in the attic, ankle-deep in pigeon droppings as usual and picked up a few bits of crap among the way

There was a broken moulded tile of some sort, complete with incy wincy. I took photos – recording everything – and a piece of rusted hardware that probably needs to go back on one of the shutters at some point. We seem to be treating this place like an archaeological dig as much as a renovation. I tried to remove anything we wanted before the roof guys just sweep it all out. I also found what must be the original frame for the lantern over the stairway. I only realised what it was when I saw broken glass caught in the torchlight

Looks like he’s got a spider on his moustache?

There was newspaper dated Tuesday 26th April 1955, stuck between rotten floorboards. I couldn’t decide the reason for the paper being stuffed down there and I don’t advocate using it as a DIY material, but it had survived over sixty years before I dragged it out. Will the house now collapse?

The church clock struck twelve and I retreated downstairs for lunch with my carrier bag of tragic treasures, like some compulsive shopper covered in cobwebs. On the way out I also recorded the final resting place of the last pigeon. It’s sad, it’s gruesome, but she probably had a good long life. I didn’t put her in my shopping bag. Charlotte will probably complain

I love how France stops at lunchtime. I love that on a Sunday there is nothing to do. Nothing but potter

On the way downstairs I grabbed the few items of textiles that I had squirrelled away for washing at My Home from Home from Home this evening. I don’t know if any of the pieces are to my taste, but if I can’t find a place for them, someone else will

Room with a Temporary View

The sky may be grey rather than blue, but it’s still the sky

In the builders’ lunch area, two large paint pots and a board had been used to create a third seat at the Formica-topped table, and there were thermos flasks, bread, a frying pan and a camping gas stove. They may be the first people to sit down and eat a hot meal here in over forty years

That’s a wonderful thing, a landmark. Life is creeping back into the house

The removal of the roof began. It’s been windy and very cold but the guys really cracked on with removing the tiles. Almost all the original 17th Century beams are past saving and need to be replaced, which is disappointing, but an essential compromise toward stopping the decay in the rest of the house

Seeing the sky come into view (albeit a flat grey that even F and B would struggle to glamourise) through the open roof was a beautiful thing and it reassured me that anything is possible, that we will overcome whatever obstacles we face and rescue this house

But we need to earn some more money first 🙂

Springing into Action? Oh yes please!

There is movement. Apparently work is about to commence on the roof, and not just sometime soon, but this Monday. I am as astounded as I am excited. Hard though it is to imagine the house without the interior waterfall, I also wonder if this might run for a while yet – I mean, it’s all very ‘sudden’ in contrast to the frustration of the last few months. I am not complaining because this is the beginning of the rebirth of the house

Coincidentally I was given an unexpected opportunity to get some more of my junk down there if I had it packed by yesterday, so this was Thursday’s priority, and I have booked a flight. It all fell into place rather well. Baz is understandably jealous and he feels more than a little second-best to my the house. He noticed that I labelled all the boxes with my name rather than our names. I didn’t mean anything by it!

Instead of sleeping in a roofless house, I have succumbed to Plan B (the very comfortable apartment I rented last time) because I can claw back some money by eating in and on heating. And because having a bath and the privacy of a working toilet is just irresistible

This time next week I intend to be knee-deep in wallpaper strippings and I can barely wait

Online romance, unkempt loveliness

This is my first online relationship. Somehow I identified this house as my soul mate among all the other potential candidates on the property equivalent of Tinder (what Baz calls ‘house porn’). I had little idea what I was looking for in my partner, only that it would be French, considerably older than me, and would hopefully introduce me to some good walking and a bit of skiing. I didn’t care how it was dressed, what sort of health issues it might have or what its relationship history would be. In fact I don’t even remember what especially piqued my interest when I saw it, but I committed there and then. I could not wait to be face to face, so I booked the first possible flight over, and it felt good. Now I spend my time dreaming of being back there when I’m not …

But what if fate and the internet hadn’t brought me to this old unloved and unfashionable house? No doubt it would have remained empty for another 40 years, and there would eventually be a sign on it – like the one further down the road where the stonework is now partially naked and the front door is rotten through – which unashamedly invites people to ‘make me an offer’

Brazen and almost naked — The brazen neighbour now almost completely exposed

I cannot imagine these beautiful old buildings having no souls, nothing beyond the simple fabric of which they are made. They have withstood so many changes, outlived all the people who dreamed of them, built them, and several generations living in them. They have energies – some are less than positive

It’s also difficult to comprehend how little monetary value they have and how little interest they get. The estate agent had the front door key but hadn’t bothered to free up the lock so that we could use the front door when I went to view. As a result, my first sight of the house interior was while negotiating my way though a garage full of junk, and this made it feel like a bizarre film set, not a place to live. Once we finally completed the sale and wrestled the key from the agent it took Baz 30 minutes and a bit of WD40 to get the lock working. The house immediately felt like a very different prospect – a home with a future

As a footnote, the plans arrived in my inbox this morning. An architect has painstakingly put together detailed plans of the layout to enable me to work with a small local team towards stabilising and saving this lovely building. This is the first essential element of progress. I’ve been told that the plumber and the builder apparently think we are ‘very brave’ to take it on. Should I be panicking?!!!

a trip down Memory Lane, Palmers Green N13

I got lucky. I made the only bid on the lot I was watching and was delighted that I paid less than expected. The seller told me all the other people watching must have all been watching X-Factor when the auction ended. She lived very close to where I grew up and she even had the same forename as I did. We arranged to collect from her house and as we got close I started to recognise everything, though I hadn’t been there for 30 years

the boating lake and bandstand at Broomfield Park

I get very nostalgic about where I grew up: I’m sure we all feel like that. People say that you should never go back but I wish there had been some time to look around while we were there. I often think about Broomfield Park, which had paths with lovely borders, a playground and the lake where our toy boats were sailed and sometimes sunk – requiring a parent to wade in. There were also tennis courts, an aviary and the sports track used for our school sports days, as well as a beautiful Memorial Garden. I assume and hope that these are all still there. One of these paths also has the dubious distinction of being where I got flashed by a man in a mac at the age of 11 on my way home from the library!!

Broomfield House, which was built in the 17th Century, and which sadly burned down in the early eighties, was a beautiful building which was used by everyone. We rather took it for granted, I suppose. It held a small museum downstairs with some fairly terrible taxidermy – probably the first time I’d ever seen a real fox – a fairground laughing policeman and a few other seemingly random bits and pieces, but the best bit for us as kids was the bee hive with a glass screen where we could see them coming in and out. There was a railing we used to climb up on to get a better view. The museum may not have been great, but we loved it and it was free, with an ice cream booth outside at the back that used to sell wafers with a chunky slab of Cornish vanilla ice cream. When I was a young child I had to attend a clinic upstairs at the house. I have no idea why I had to go there, but they used to give me rosehip syrup (has anyone else remember having that?). I remember the very grand hall and the beautiful staircase with red carpet which had a rope across to stop the general public straying upstairs. Over this staircase the ceiling was covered in a sumptuous mural of dark theatricality

Lost, but wasn't it beautiful — Lost, but wasn’t it beautiful

Several years ago the remainder of the shell of Broomfield House was featured on the Griff Rhys-Jones programme ‘Restoration’ where viewers voted in some kind of competitive frenzy for their favourite ruined building to receive funds (very much like the X-Factor, in fact). It was a ‘yes’ from me but Broomfield House did not win and is still awaiting the attention it requires. Truth be told, the old building was completely wiped out by the fire, and I am not sure how I feel about that. When something is lost, really lost, then surely restoration is just re-creation?

I have ‘lifted’ the pictures, taken around 1980, from the internet, mainly from the Friends of Broomfield Park. I hope they will not mind

Here comes the flood / a mural dilemma

The rains which hit Cannes area with such devastating consequences on Saturday 3^rd arrived with us on the following Tuesday. It was an insane deluge and the thunder and lightning was quite entertaining through the skylight over the staircase. For the first hour the guttering coped with the water, but then I heard the tell-tale drip as the house could no longer resist. I stayed calm but it was going to be a long night

I put a large container in place to collect the worst of it and added towels to reduce the impact on the surrounding marble. This is not the first flood the house has seen and it is unlikely to be the last before we get the roof repaired. I could do no more than that and it was a depressing scene so I shuffled off in my flip flops to the salon to remove wallpaper as a distraction

When I first viewed the house in May I glimpsed some plaster where someone had pulled at the wallpaper, revealing the edge of a design. I decided that working on this was the best way to take my mind off the leak

I started taking paper off and exposed this stunning, though badly damaged, 17th century painting of two lions guardant

It is very fragile and as I did not have the expertise or materials to stabilise it I moved onto another wall in the salon to strip some more paper, only to find yet more designs, some of which are as bright as they can ever have been. The indications are that these designs are all round the room

We are keen to preserve this history under glass, and we feel privileged to have something as special as this. However (and I never thought I would say this) it creates a strange ‘be careful what you wish for’ dilemma. My problem is this; if there are, as it seems, numerous bits of painting around the room, am I supposed to strip everything back to the bare plaster and expose them all? It may sound wonderful and it is the sort of thing I have often dreamed of, but this is also the biggest and most exciting room I have ever had the chance to decorate, and I don’t know that I am prepared to allow the décor to be entirely dictated by someone who died around 300 years ago!

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: