Always look under the floorboards ………. stories from a Leicester house

There are always secrets waiting to be found in any old house.

The bottle, 2019

Most I grant you will be mundane, but they will still be a secret with a story.

So here is the one concerning a beer bottle and the space under the floorboards of a house on Harrow Road in Leicester.

The bottle was found by our Polly and Joshua soon after they moved in, and with it comes a little bit of Leicester’s history.

The name on the bottle was R C Allen, and a search of the directories for 1906 showed they had premises at Humberside Gate and 2 Gallowree gate, and according to one source, “the Allen family has long associations with the brewing industry in Leicester. 

In the late 1860's, Thomas Allen ran the 'Lord Rancliffe' in Redcross Street and, in 1870, John Allen was a wine and spirit merchant on Gallowtree Gate.  

By 1875, 'Southern & Allen were mineral water manufacturers and 'Allen & Co.' were wine and spirit merchants on Humberstone Gate.  

In 1898, R. C. Allen was set up as a limited company, being a joint venture between 'Everards', 'Welch Brothers' and the 'Leicester Brewing & Malting Co.' to bottle beer brands other than those of Allsop's, Bass and Guinness.

Allen House (on the corner of Oxford Street and Newarke Street) was built in the late 1920's and incorporated both offices and the bottling plant.  Taken over by 'Praeds in 1951, part of the building was eventually used as an antiques centre”*.

Looking out on Harrow Road

Now, I recommend the site because there is a lot more including pictures of the Allen’s buildings and information on some of the breweries associated with R C Allen.

But as ever, I never crib other people’s research and so suggest you follow the link to read more about the Allen’s and Leicester’s brewers.

For now I will return to Polly and Josh’s bottle which is a fine example of others that can be found for sale, along with a delightful “ginger beer bottle opener” which has the name R C Allen embossed on the handle.

We were discussing what Polly and Josh should do with the bottle, and I like the idea that they may leave it to the next owner, because as Josh said, “it belongs with the house”.

We will never know when it got there, but the chances are that it was left during the construction of the house sometime around or a little before 1906.

This would make it just one of those careless acts by one of the builders, but the romantic in me wonders if it was put there by the first residents to mark their presence in the house.

A rival, 1906

Such acts are quite common and go back far into history.

My maternal grandparents discovered a George III coin under the front step of their terraced house, which fits with the rough date of its construction, while friends have discovered shoes and other objects under their floor boards, none of which seem random acts.

Fine dinning in Leicester, 1906

Of course, the secret of the bottle will for now remain just that.

But I like the link with Leicester’s history.

Sadly a trawl of the directories didn't come up with any adverts for R C Allen, but I did find these two which caught my fancy.

Location; Leicester

Pictures; from the collection of Polly and Josh, 2019, adverts from a 1906 directory

*Past and Present pubs of Leicestershire & Rutland, https://www.pappolar.com/city-breweries

Stories of a house in Leicester ...........

This is the story of a house in Leicester.

It dates from the early 20th century and its unique history will tell us much about the growth of the city, the people who called it home and the bigger picture of Britain over the last 116 years.

Now I know it has become popular to tell the story of a house over time, and recently there has been a second television series devoted to just such an idea.

But I did got there first, having written about our own family home, and those I lived in in Eltham  and Peckham.*

The earliest dates to 2011 and has now clocked 112 stories with Peckham and Eltham following soon afterwards.

But the house on Harrow Road is a new venture, although like all the others it is occupied by family, in this case our Polly, Joshua and Arlo.

Harrow Road is a nice mix of early 20th century properties close to the city centre.

They were built in two stages with the earlier ones dating from sometime between 1893 and 1901, and ours around 1906.

At this stage I can’t be more precise, but a trawl of the street directories for those years will pinpoint just when Harrow Road extended up the hill to included ours.

Some street directories for Leicester which list traders, streets and householders are on line, but those from 1896, through to 1905 are only available as hard copies in book format or on micro film.

In the same way the electoral rolls for this bit of south Leicester have not yet been digitalized leaving the researcher no alternative but to wander over the collection held at Leicester Central Library. **

That said our house has begun to reveal its secrets.

In 1906 this was the home of Mr. William Lewin who was a foreman clicker.

He was engaged in the shoe making trade, and our chap was the foreman who cut out the leather for boots and shoes, then giving the leather out to the workmen to finish off.

He seems an enterprising individual, given that five years earlier he had described himself as a "pattern cutter in the boot trade", and by 1908 was listed as a “leather fittings manufacturer" with his own premises at 72 High Street.

And that rise is also reflected in his move to Harrow Road from Paton Street, where he had lived with his wife Betsy and two young children.  Number 15 Paton Street is still there, and while it is also a terraced property it was older than our house.

Both houses are just off Narborough Road and are a few minutes’ walk from each other.

And while it is not very historical, the romantic in me likes the idea that they may well have watched our house being built and put down a marker that they wanted to be the first tenants.

Of course, all that relies on much more research, including a look through the rate books which will determine if they were the owners or tenants of the new house.

And that in turn depends on just how of the records from that period have survived.

We do know that within in two years the family had moved into a new property at 34 Sweetbriar Road, and William listed himself as an employer.

His son followed him into the business, and in 1939 was living on Aylestone Road.

All of which is a long way from our house, which by 1911 was the home of the Haywood family who occupied the property well into the 1940s.

The Haywood’s had two children and took in a lodger, which may have been a squeeze.

There were six rooms listed in the 1911 census of which three were upstairs, and those poses the question of who slept where.

Their son  was 21, their daughter 11 and the boarder, 24, which may suggest that their son and the boarder shared a room or perhaps one of the downstairs rooms was given over to the lodger, George William Beck who was a railway clerk.

The fun as ever is taking the existing layout of the property and speculating on how each room was used.

But that is for another time, after a more detailed search of postwar records for our house, which with the help of electoral registers should be able to reveal the full list of residents from 1947 when Mr. Haywood died to the owner who sold the property to our Polly and Joshua.

In the meantime those same directories offered up some wonderful adverts like this one for Cort, Paul and Cornick of Market Place and Hotel Street, who specialized in all things to do with “iron furnishings” and once again the romantic in me ponders on whether some of the fittings including the bathroom, lavatory, chimney pieces and gas fittings might have been supplied by them.

And given that Polly and Josh found an old bottle under the floor boards in one room, there may be other odd bits of history lurking in the same places, perhaps even an original gas fitting.

We shall see.

Location; Leicester

Pictures; the house on Harrow Road, from the collection of Polly and Joshua, and adverts from Wright’s Directory of Leicester, 1906

*The story of a house, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house
One hundred years of one house in Well Hall, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall
The story of one house in Lausanne Road, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20story%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Lausanne%20Road

**Leicester Central Library, https://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-community/libraries-and-community-centres/libraries/find-a-library/leicester-central-library/