Another question cabinetmaker or joiner

[engineer one]

like you smudger i find it fascinating, and if your house truly is 1914, rather than slightly earlier, then it is possible that the labour situation had changed just before the war, for which everybody had an expectation,
and the older guys were more able to turn their hands.

len deighton i think, and someone else have written fictional accounts of building the great cathedrals, and even then the demarkation was extraordinary.

paul :wink:

 

[Smudger]

You are absolutely right - our house is towards the end of a row of speculative semis - in fact next to the builder's yard, and our garden wall still has his name stone in it. He built a few houses each year, filling up his land as he went along. As the houses pass into WW1 the general quality definitely goes down, partly due to materials shortages but also due to dilution of the labour force. One example is that the pre-1914 houses have cellars and the later ones don't (I feel cheated by that!). We can see the loss of quality of timber in the purlins and joists, and also the 'norms' changed so that less wood was used. There are also some real apprentice errors - trim cut too short and filled with putty in one case! But the windows are excellent, probably made elsewhere, as the coloured glass was clearly bought in, and the general trim is well done.

It's a fascinating business. I have found out that our place was built for rent, not sale, and originally didn't even have a number. I have often wondered about reinstating the name in the glass over the front door, but the original name (Rosebury) is pretty meaningless. By which I mean my wife doesn't like it...