This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family. *
Now we didn’t have a coal hole or coal cellar in 294, nor from memory did we ever have an open fire.
When we moved into the house in the early 1960s, Eltham was about to become a smokeless zone, and while we could have burned specially treated fuel mother put her foot down, arguing she had had enough of coal in the old house, which started our long connection with gas fires and paraffin burning stoves.
Of course, the whole Well Hall estate had been built without cellars, and so coal would have been brought round the back and carried through the garden of 296.
The coal bunker was still there when we moved in, and dad added a big tank for the paraffin which I think was delivered by tanker.
At the time I shared the wisdom of mother’s decision, but now I rather think it was a mistake, not least because we have open fires which are set and lit from autumn through till the end of spring and are cheaper to run than heating the whole house.
True we do use central heating, but it sits on the lowest setting and just keeps the remainder of the place from becoming “ice station zebra”.
And in line with the city’s regulations on burning coal, we have always used smokeless fuel since we reopened the fire places back in the early 1980s.
Sadly, while we have a coal cellar, I have never won the battle about reinstating it, which I confess only plays to my childhood memories of the coal deliveries.
They began with that series of distinctive sounds which started with the crashing noise as a full hundredweight of coal shot from the bag into the cellar, followed by the slower and longer sound of the coal settling, and were accompanied by the smell, which took a few minutes to rise from the cellar but then lingered in the house for hours.
And like then, our coal comes from the coal man, once a fortnight on a large flat backed lorry, which long replaced the horse and cart.
In that respect, the continuity of coal deliveries was broken for just a few years, between the last of the old coal deliveries and our resumption which I suspect is not the case on the Well Hall Estate.
In the case of our house, the fire places were blocked up in the early 60s and a full thirty years later were still closed.
The previous owner had not only closed them off but built elaborate hardboard facades, omitting to insert ventilation panels which as everyone knows are essential.
Back then I thought these facades were the height of modernity, but now I like our open fires, although in our case the search for replacement fireplaces took us out of south Manchester and into the east and north of the city where these reminders of our Victorian and Edwardian past were still being ripped out, only to be snapped up by residents in Chorlton-m-Hardy, Withington and Didsbury.
All of which leaves me to wonder what happened to the fireplaces of 294, but that I guess is another story for another time.
And conclude with that obvious observation of the destructive impact of the old coal burning fire places on the environment.
Location; Well Hall and Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Pictures; Well Hall Road, circa 1970, a coal hole, 2018, and reinstated fireplaces, 2014, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, from the Simpson collection, Enoch Royle and father on Albany Road, Chorlton, cum-Hardy circa 1930s, from the Lloyd Collection
*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road,
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall
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| 294, 1973 |
When we moved into the house in the early 1960s, Eltham was about to become a smokeless zone, and while we could have burned specially treated fuel mother put her foot down, arguing she had had enough of coal in the old house, which started our long connection with gas fires and paraffin burning stoves.
Of course, the whole Well Hall estate had been built without cellars, and so coal would have been brought round the back and carried through the garden of 296.
The coal bunker was still there when we moved in, and dad added a big tank for the paraffin which I think was delivered by tanker.
 |
| A coal hole, 2018 |
True we do use central heating, but it sits on the lowest setting and just keeps the remainder of the place from becoming “ice station zebra”.
And in line with the city’s regulations on burning coal, we have always used smokeless fuel since we reopened the fire places back in the early 1980s.
Sadly, while we have a coal cellar, I have never won the battle about reinstating it, which I confess only plays to my childhood memories of the coal deliveries.
 |
| Enoch Royle and son, circa 1930s |
And like then, our coal comes from the coal man, once a fortnight on a large flat backed lorry, which long replaced the horse and cart.
 |
| Fireplace, 2016 |
In the case of our house, the fire places were blocked up in the early 60s and a full thirty years later were still closed.
The previous owner had not only closed them off but built elaborate hardboard facades, omitting to insert ventilation panels which as everyone knows are essential.
Back then I thought these facades were the height of modernity, but now I like our open fires, although in our case the search for replacement fireplaces took us out of south Manchester and into the east and north of the city where these reminders of our Victorian and Edwardian past were still being ripped out, only to be snapped up by residents in Chorlton-m-Hardy, Withington and Didsbury.
 |
| Fireplace, 2016 |
And conclude with that obvious observation of the destructive impact of the old coal burning fire places on the environment.
Location; Well Hall and Chorlton-cum-Hardy
Pictures; Well Hall Road, circa 1970, a coal hole, 2018, and reinstated fireplaces, 2014, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, from the Simpson collection, Enoch Royle and father on Albany Road, Chorlton, cum-Hardy circa 1930s, from the Lloyd Collection
*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road,
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall
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