Who has the oldest House?

Number24

I wonder who among us who lives in the oldest house. Odd question, but I was hoping to be the winner. :v
My house was built in the summer of 1909. My grandfather was born that Christmas. His parents heated the stowe until it was glowing that winter to keep the room warm for the baby, because the wall of a wooden house need time to "set". The next year the family bought a huge stowe, about six feet tall, to avoid it happening again, and that's the stowe I'm sitting by now.
Do you have a story about your house?

Higgins

Asp9mm lives in a cave which is populated from his family with brothers and sisters 'making' the next generation for over 500 years

Number24

And still you remain such close friends. That's nice

Loeffelholz

I bought (and now reside in) my childhood home, which my parents purchased when I was six months old...and it was about a hundred years old then. My dad doubled the size of the house in the mid-1960s, and it had been expanded once before my family purchased it. Our understanding is that the original house and foundation was basically a miners' shack built in the 1860s to quarter workers. It is one of the oldest structures on this end of Lincoln, Illinois; about 150 years old.

Matt S

Sorry Number24, you're not the winner. My home was built in 1867, exactly 150 years ago.

Chriscoop

My last house was built in 1763, it was the village bootmakers for generations and when I bought it it still had his little workshop in the back courtyard with a tall chimney above the glue pot. I bought it from an elderly lady who only lived in one downstairs room, I completely refurbished that house, exposing the two inglenook fireplaces, fitted wood burning stoves, new bathrooms, kitchen etc. As this is now my line of work it took a while to do, I enjoyed that house completed for 4 years until I left it due to divorce.... My ex wife sold it 8 months after the divorce, bought a 1960's semi detached house and pocketed a healthy profit. I went to live on my motor yacht. I named that house cobblers cottage and it was in a lovely little village called Cawood which had a castle that Henry the 8th once lived in and the a famous archbishop of York that the nursery rhyme humpty dumpy was created after.
Interesting topic, I did specialise in renovating old properties, I had an investor at one time and we bought big victorian villas in a town called harrogate and converted them into luxury apartments, these days 80% of my work is in bespoke kitchens and bedrooms.

Thunderpussy

Not the oldest by a long mile but I do remember playing in my current home when it
Was being built. I can remember jumping from the back bedroom window into the
Large pile of sand, being used by the builders. Odd to think, years later I'd have bought
That very house.

Number24

To be honest there wasn't much chance mine was the oldest, but I do like old houses. They have so much history and character. Are the houses rebuildt a lot, or is a lot of the interiours still there?

Loeffelholz

In my homes' case, the front room and kitchen are the original structure - about 30% of the current square footage. My father (with my grandfather's counsel and help) added three bedrooms and a large 'family room' at the back of the house. The only way to tell is to look closely at the foundation The interior of the old part is probably unrecognizable and quite confusing to the miners' ghosts we joke about having in permanent residence )

Chriscoop

Number24 wrote:

To be honest there wasn't much chance mine was the oldest, but I do like old houses. They have so much history and character.are the house rebuildt a lot, or is a lot of the interiours still there?

I always try to retain as much originality as possible, these days in the UK there is a trend for reinstating original features which is a good thing, at one point it was fashionable to box in and cover up panelled doors and spindles on staircases, I've even had 120 year old plaster ceiling roses and covings remade to repair damaged existing ones.

Loeffelholz

Just snapped this one.

This hallway divides the old and new parts of the house. On the right are three added bedrooms; down the length of the hallway and around the corner to the left is the back family room (now called the Music Room, where loud music emanating from vinyl records is often heard B-) ). The brick chimney to the left used to be on the exterior, and leads down to where the old coal-burner in the basement used to be.



It was a great home in which to grow up - it is actually possible to do indoor 'laps' if you're an energetic child, or one of the many dogs who've lived here )

Asp9mm

Ours is 1698. Not quite as old as Higgy-bum says, but not far off.

Number24

We have a winner! (so far)
Can you tell us more? About the house, that is. Higgins has already explained about the family history :v

Asp9mm

It was built between the Tudor and Stuart period by an old family. There are old pillars in the cellar which are Roman, so parts of it are even older. There's an old well in the garden that supposedly dates back to Saxon times. Really deep, Higgins will never climb out of it. If he survives the fall that is.

Chriscoop

Asp9mm wrote:

It was built between the Tudor and Stuart period by an old family. There are old pillars in the cellar which are Roman, so parts of it are even older. There's an old well in the garden that supposedly dates back to Saxon times. Really deep, Higgins will never climb out of it. If he survives the fall that is.

Interesting, there is a house near me called saxon well house, it is supposed to have a musket ball embedded in it somewhere from an English civil war battle that happened in the area. Cromwell climbed the local church tower to see the enemy, there is also still a pub nearby that over looks the stream which ran red with the blood of English dead.

Number24

Very interesting! Where are the mist-covered mountains, ASP9mm? I mean the ones you live in not the ones I see around me.

Higgins

That's the mist of 600 year-old unwashed socks

Asp9mm

That'd be telling. that idiot Higgins was close with his remark though. There are inhabitated cave/rock houses near me. Apparently where Tolkien got the idea of Hobbiton.

Asp9mm

Number24

Beautiful. Where is this?

Chriscoop

Holy Austin rock in Staffordshire

There quite a few cave houses or houses built into rock faces in England, quite a famous one is in Knaresborough

Asp9mm

We actually looked at the last house last year, but it was too impractical as it only had two main bedrooms. We really need three for visitors to stop over. So Higgins was, for the first time, very nearly right. Very tempting though, my other half loved it. Didn't require heating in the Winter and it is cool in Summer months.

Number24

Wonderfull. When I started this thread I half feared my post would be the first and the last. Instead there's been many very readable posts. :007)

Higgins

Serious question: There must be some energy loss thru the windows/door/front wall.

Is it really not necessary to heat those cave homes and what are the cimneys for?

Asp9mm

There is a log fire in the main room. But the others are venting and one for the clothes dryer. They have underfloor heating as well, especially in the bathroom, but the property goes so far back into the rock that the temperature levels are tolerable even in deep winter without heating. Log fires are just cool when you want to cuddle up in the Winter and have rampant sex on the rug.

Number24

Yes, I assume the temperature won't vary much, both winter and summer.

CoolHandBond

I certainly won't get close to the oldest house but maybe close to the newest - we moved into our newly built house on Mactan island in April 2014. I sold my house in south London in late 2015 which had been built in the mid 1960's.

thesecretagent

Part of the structure of our house is 1826. It was a mine captain's house for Wheel Jane tin mine in Cornwall. It is about two miles away from the mine near a village called Twelveheads, which got its name from the twelve headed rock crushers where the tin was extracted then taken by train to Devoran and shipped around the world. It's just a rural area now, the mine waste is grown over and the train track is a coast to coast cycle trail. They filmed some of Poldark nearby recently.

VesperMelograno

I am far from having the oldest house but I'm excited to see the oldest house in our area is going to be saved. I review building plans and issue permits for construction and a house that was built in the early eighteen-hundreds just got saved from being demolished. A very eccentric young man with quite a bit of money purchased it. It was originally built in Germany in the 18th century and then the family moved to the United States, disassembled the house, and shipped it board by board to North Carolina. Then they resembled the house and have been living in it until maybe about 50 years ago. Granted this is very young compared to many of the other houses listed but it's a really exciting for local Appalachian Heritage architecture. I'm going to try to sneak some photos of it to post because it is just glorious.