Hi, 10C...interesting question.....the history of a house is often fascinating....
We have history of the plot of land on which my last house was built going back to 1891 when it was sold (just the plot) for £600.....which is odd because in 1926 the house and land were sold for £450.
Don't know exactly when the house was built but we know it was built by a jobbing builder who built it from his leftovers....and it certainly looked that way!
A lady named Martha then owned the house and sold it in 1940 to a Jewish lady and her family who wanted to bring their jewellery away from the bombing in London...they built a safe in the floor of the hall but when we discovered it it was empty..... :-(
One son was a watch and clock repairer and one a Rabbi and the American Jewish airmen used the front room as a synagogue during the war.....
By sheer coincidence MrG met a writer who was researching the history of American Jewish airmen in Kettering during the war but couldn't find out where they worshiped......MrG was able to tell him...
In 1945 a lady bought the house for £1,400 and left it to her husband when she died in 1946....
He was a lovely rascal......I heard wonderful stories from the neighbours about his hiring and chasing of housekeepers......when we moved in there was still a hole in the hedge where they used to run through to escape his clutches ... :-)
I still can hear my neighbour, Ivy, saying.....Oooo my dear....manys a time I watched him chase 'er round yon garden there....
He eventually caught and married one of his housekeepers....and we bought the house from them in 1983 for a knock down price.....his suggestion....because he thought I was lovely and wanted me to have the house.....he was a proper ladies man!
I discovered much later that MrG's mother had, as a little child, had knitting lessons in our house in the early 1900s...and that one of the barns had been used to make the famous Wicksteed Park ice cream.....
When we moved in a man was living with his cat in a little barn that had once been used as a TB isolation room......his wife was house proud and wouldn't let him in their house during the day after he retired
because he made the place look untidy.....
I hope we left some happy history behind....x