Our HOUSES through TIME
Our homes can be more than just places we live in; they can also disclose fascinating clues about the past and the people who occupied them before us. Here, three women reveal their intriguing discoveries
‘I saw the words school room written in a Victorian script in the plaster’
Helen Garlick, 63, author of the memoir No Place To Lie, is married to marriage counsellor Tim Rice, 65. They live in Fernhurst, West Sussex.
‘Tim and I wanted to move out of London and find a place where our grown-up, blended family of five children would love to stay, too. Eight months into our search, we came across Hawksfold House, an 11-bedroom Victorian mansion that had been split into three homes. I actually fell
in love with the view that the house overlooked first. When we initially came to see it, we overshot the drive and as soon as I saw the South Downs, I burst into spontaneous applause.
I was determined to buy the property even before we got inside, despite it needing a lot of work as it hadn’t been updated since the 1980s, when it had
‘It feels like we are connecting to the past’
been converted from one big house into three separate ones.
In March 2018, we moved in and started renovating. The more work we’ve done, the more it feels like the house has given up its secrets. We heard from our neighbours in the adjoining parts of the house that the whole building had been built by a Victorian architect called Anthony Salvin as his retirement home when he moved out of London, finishing it in 1864.
A pioneer of the Gothic revival style, Salvin had worked for Queen Victoria on the restoration of Windsor Castle following damage from a fire in 1853, as well as building and restoring hundreds of churches and country houses all over England. We live in the section that would have been the hub of the house: the servants’ quarters.
Exciting discoveries
In June 2021, we were redecorating a bedroom. The walls were still covered with cork tiles and woodchip wallpaper so our decorator took it back to the original plaster. I was working at home one day when I heard her shout: ‘Helen, you might want to come and see this.’
I rushed in and there, written on the original plaster in pencil in florid Victorian script, were the words “school room”. I was stunned. It was an adult’s handwriting and we think it was marked out as the place where the children of the servants came for their lessons.
But perhaps the most exciting discovery of all was a Tudor bell, which we found in the roof. The house is three storeys and very tall, so when we moved in, we could see a tower but not what was inside. When the builder climbed up to do renovations to the roof, he discovered the bell still inside, perfectly intact. He filmed it on his phone and rushed down to show it to us. It was such an amazing find that a few hours later I overcame my huge fear of heights and climbed up the scaffolding to see it for myself.
It was about 2ft and had the name of the bell-maker, Petrus Van Den Ghein, with the Latin words “Me fecit” on it, meaning “I made this”, and the date 1514.
The same family of bell-makers also made the bell on Henry VIII’S warship The Mary Rose, which is now in a museum in Portsmouth. Our bell was still in good condition and it was simply incredible to touch an object that was more than 500 years old. We think Salvin may have taken it from a church to use in his home. Our builder gave it a new bell pull rope, so I can ring it from the landing on special occasions, like my daughter’s recent university graduation!
It makes a light tinkly sound, and really feels like we are connecting to the past. I constantly wonder when did it last peal out? Was it for the children to come to the school room or was it Salvin’s way of summoning help or attention when he needed something?
Salvin died on 17 December 1881, aged 82. He never achieved lasting fame like his contemporaries Gilbert Scott, who built The Albert Memorial, or Augustus Pugin, who built the clock tower for Big Ben. The sense you get is of a man who worked very hard all his life but never got the recognition he deserved. I really hope that by lovingly renovating our home and making use of all its features, we are taking Hawksfold House back to its former glory and honouring Anthony Salvin’s legacy.’
‘We are really just visitors passing through’
Tanith Carey, 54, is a parenting author who lives in London with her husband, Anthony, and daughters, Lily, 19, and Clio, 16.
‘The moment I saw my Victorian terraced house in North London, I fell in love with the original black and white floor tiles in the hall and the William Morris-style tiles around the fireplaces. But apart from the fact it was built in the late 1890s, we knew little more about it, except that it had been in the same Irish family for half a century.
From the start, though, we were baffled by the fact that one side of the cellar was a tall mound of earth, with old bits of plywood and piping tossed on top. The other half had been used as a coal store. There was still a hatch at the front where the coal sacks were emptied during deliveries.
After five years, it started to bother me that we were living on top of a rubbish tip, with no clue as to what was underneath. Plus, we needed the extra storage. We found an amazing builder, Shawn, who spent three weeks armed with just a shovel filling up so many buckets with the soil and debris that we needed seven skips to take it away. It was hard work, but the boredom was relieved by the fact that every day or so, Shawn would emerge from the depths to show us a new object he had found in the impacted soil.
His first finds were beautiful blue and purple medicine bottles. One was moulded with the words “Elmer Pettinger”, a chemist we discovered had been on Hampstead High Street at the time, three miles away. It was odd to think that the last time someone had taken the particular medicine we could still smell inside the bottle was probably during the reign of Queen Victoria. There was also a copper kettle with an elegant, tapering spout and the rosy-cheeked face of a tiny china doll.
Shawn also found three clay pipes, one still with scorch marks from when it was held in the candle flame to light it. We learned that before cigarettes, these pipes were considered disposable and given away free with beer in pubs. There was also a small black leather lace-up boot, for a child of about 10.
All were tiny snippets of domestic life. But together, they added up to a fascinating time capsule of the Victorian era. To me, they seemed like rare treasures. But to the early occupants they were rubbish that got chucked into the basement when no one could be bothered to dispose of them properly.
Digging for history
I was desperate to find out more. At the local history library, I found out the house was built, as part of the gradual development of the area in 1891, on the pastures of a grand house, which has long since gone. As they completed rows of houses, with every few properties the builders would shunt the extra soil to one side and leave it in the basement, as they had in our home.
When I checked the census, the most likely owner of the child’s boot was Rose Lydia
Hayland, who turned
10 in 1901. Rose was the only daughter of
William Hayland, 38, who was running the hat shop set up by his father at 52 Tottenham Court Road.
Just as so many of us do now, a later census showed William moved out of London. By 1903, he had taken his family to live in a Gothic pile called the Briers, near Eastbourne, Sussex.
Now when I look at the objects, it feels odd that such mundane items now seem so meaningful. But they made me see my house in a different light. The dark brown bannisters I’ve always known look the same. But now, instead of just seeing my daughters’ hands passing along them, I also imagine Rose’s.
These objects remind me that while we may live out important moments in our homes, we are really just visitors passing through.’
‘The objects are a fascinating time capsule’
‘We’ve heard the voices of young girls laughing’
Children’s author Natalie Reeves Billing, 42, has discovered that the Victorian house in the Wirral where she lives with her husband, Colin, and their two young children, is steeped in fascinating history.
‘Ilove to celebrate Halloween, so four years ago, I put on a spooky treasure-hunt trail for my young children, Nathaniel and Ellie-rose, around our home
– a seven-bedroom Victorian house built in 1845, with a basement that was originally used as a wine cellar. As I was looking around with a torch, I found a recess in the wall. Clearing out the cobwebs, I felt an object there; I pulled it out, it dropped onto the floor and a wooden box fell out. When
I saw it, my heart started to race.
Present from the past
Was it letters, jewellery, legal documents? I took it outside to have a look in the light and I saw that it had a sliding lid with the word ‘Spellicans’. I recognised it as a game I’d played as a child, although I’d called it by another name: Spillikins or Pick-up Sticks. The idea is to let go of bundles of sticks so they land in a heap and then see who can remove them without disturbing the rest of the pile; it’s a bit like an early version of Jenga.
The box was in incredibly good condition and the paper instructions were still inside, with the date when it was made: 1840. On local history websites, we discovered that for 25 years, until 1890, our house was lived in by Samuel Moreton and his three children. Samuel was a judge who set up his own courthouse for petty crimes, using ancient local laws. Having spoken to local historians, looked at old records and heard from relatives of people who once lived here, we discovered that he subjected people to ludicrous judgements, stripped them of their possessions and held court for the entertainment of his wealthy friends.
We wondered if his approach to kids was that they should be seen but not heard, so perhaps his children had to hide their games. But there’s another rather spooky reason we think that game might have belonged to Samuel’s children. Since we moved in eight years ago, we’ve heard the voices of young girls laughing and chattering, either in the house or outside in the fields, as if their voices are being carried on the wind from a nearby school. But that’s not possible as we’re in the middle of nowhere.
When I first noticed the voices, I wasn’t frightened, just a bit unsettled and fascinated.
I asked a spiritualist to visit, and he picked up on lots of movement in the house, like many spirits passing through.
Before Samuel and his family lived here, it had been the site of an ancient priory and there was also a Viking battlefield nearby. The spiritualist told us he sensed the presence of two young girls of about eight or nine who could have been Samuel’s daughters. But we have to research a bit more to discover what happened to them.
As we’ve decorated the house and made it so light and lovely, the girls’ presence has become part of our home. We've even given them names: Emma and Emily. Now we keep the game in the library, which is one of the other places where we hear the girls’ voices. Nathaniel, now nine, and Ellie-rose, eight, often say they hear footsteps and laughter. The children are quite matter-of-fact about it, while my husband, Colin, swings between being a believer and not.
Looking back, it feels like I was meant to find that Spellicans game and as if I have been given a present from the past. I love the feeling that something that’s previously been loved and lost for a long time has now been found and enjoyed again.’