This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*
Now with age has come a degree of respect for the house I now live in, which was built in the same year as the family house in Well Hall.
Both were built in 1915, and both have been much knocked about in the century and a bit since their first residents moved in.
We did little in the way of alterations to the Eltham house during out 30 year stay, partly because much of the ripping out, and adding “new” had already been done.
Not so the house I now live in, which the previous owner and then me did much to change. He ripped out fireplaces, and picture rails, and I bits to the bathroom. Then in a fit of remorse I started to put back what had been taken away, and I have to say not always accurately or sympathetically.
What I have come to learn is that a house should always be transformed slowly and keep an eye on the original design and the vision of the architect.
So, I was pleased that my friend Carol who still lives in Well Hall has retained more of the original features of her house on the estate than did previous owners of 294.
And yesterday shared some of those features including the fireplaces, which are an exact copy of the one that survived in our house.
They will have been standard design and I know from reading reports of the construction of the estate in 1915 that the architects ordered in large numbers of the same features and fitted them out in each house, which is just as you would expect.
I am hoping that others who read this will send over more pictures of their homes with the bits that first adorned the properties.
Location; Well Hall
Pictures; fire places Well Hall, 2022 from the collection of Carol Maddalena
*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall
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