house names

RiverwalkIt's entirely up to you if you name your house or not, don't think it's at all pretentious. Remember that when period houses were built, say sometime in Victorian times, they would also have been allocated a street name and number [especially since posting letters really took off]but would often give the house a name [or the builders would] even for 'small suburban semi's' or [whisper the word!] bungalows. So what is so special about a period [old] house?You do not need a mansion to have a house name.I agree that there are some silly names out there [the costa fortunes etc] but there are also a lot of pretty ones.Some houses in the past did not have numbers [especially in parts of Europe] and would have a topographical kind of name.
Since our houses cost so much, I guess it is up to us to decide on a name if we want one, although most of my houses have been named already so we tend to keep them.We don't live on an estate and our house name reflects the number of apple trees in the garden.However, even if we did buy a house on an estate, I think I would still name the house if I wanted to.It's not pretentiousness, just a matter of choice.

IF I was to name my house , which I am NOT , I would call it Clouds , sounds rather dreamy and romantic !!

I have a friend who bought a house that was number 9 which the people before had called ' Cloud 9' as it was at the top of a hill She let a rather lovely pyrocantha grow over the ' Cloud' part.

Best name I have seen recently - in a novel - was a beach house in America called 'Sea for Miles'.........

The house that exdh and I bought was known by 2 different names in the village (never found out why), Hillhead Cottage and Kites Cottage. I always felt that Hill head sounded a bit sinister, and Kites Cottage sounded twee, so it became just "Kites".

Ours is Bridle Croft (came with the house) aka casa caotica

phoenix I quite like Hillhead Cottage, did it remind you of a name in a sinister story?
Polygran Bridle Croft..... a converted mews house?
There is often some history behind house names, apart from the obvious ones,
does anyone live in a REALLY old house with a baffling name [which could mean something, but is now not in general use?]
Does anyone live in an old vicarage [the rectory]?
Does anyone live in a converted windmill [apart from Jonathan Creek!]
Anyone have a GAELIC house name?

Our last-but-one house always had a number whilst we lived there but when we got the deeds from the building society I found it had originally been called Ultima Thule. Not sure when or why the name fell into disuse or what it means!

Gagagran I have just googled this! Ultima Thule; a distant and unknown region, far off, unknown, the extreme limit of travel. So, that begs the question of how old your house was and WHERE it was? The Hebrides?Doncaster? Or was it just somebody's joke?

When first married ex dh we lived in King George IV Lodge, Lancaster Tower, Windsor Castle.

You were prisoners!!!!!! ha-ha. Seriously, that sounds very grand Phoenix
was your ex DH a royal hanger-on or did he work there?OR [sound of trumpet fanfare] was he [gasp] connected to THE FAMILY?
Anyway, what was it like living there? A bit spooky? Handy for the shops.

I first realised that my future husband and I were from completely different backgrounds when he gave me his parents address to write to him:

House Name
Town
Postcode

When I pressed him for the number and street he just said, no that's all the address you need. On my first visit I discovered it was a Georgian Manor house and the area it stood in was named after the house. There are still the remains of the original medieval house in the grounds.

Come on phoenix spill the beans. How did you come to be living next door to Her Majesty and what were the ups and downs?

Ladies please, you should know that it's not the done thing to ask questions of Royalty

deep curtsy Respect to our Princess Phoenix

rosesarered well it was in the suburbs of Halifax which is hardly "a distant and unknown region" and it was built in 1959 so not an old house from antiquity. Maybe somebody in its past had connections with the far north and used poetic licence to name it. We'll never know!

My then husband was a woodcarver and guilder in the Royal Household. (One of the projects he worked on was the gold coach for the Silver Jubilee). We were allowed to live in "grace and favour" accommodation. Our flat was on the bottom floor of Lancaster Tower, which if you were looking up the Long Walk was the left hand one of the two either side of the central archway.

Lots of ups and downs, some of them very odd, for example the soap allocation. Every month each member of staff was given a large bath size bar of Bronnley soap

Not relevant at all to the op but you have triggered a memory phoenix. I worked for the Inland Revenue for many years and we were issued with a bar of soap periodically (not posh Bronnley though - more like floor scrubbing soap) and a cotton hand towel. Like the toilet rolls in the ladies (and gents I suppose) it was stamped "Stationery Office".

What a hoot! bars of soap!phoenix I am curious as to the 'how' the soap was given[never mind the WHY] did you stand in line as it was dispensed[soap......dispensed, geddit?]was there any touching of forelocks needed, or was the bar of soap simply left on the doorstep like an unwanted baby?Well, at least it was Bronnley, unlike the Inland Revenue [cheapskates!]Gagagran was the soap and hand towel handed over while you were at your desk, or if not, HOW did you receive it?Did anyone ever laugh?Answers on a postcard please.

Don't worry about sticking to the OP phoenix and Gagagran more anecdotes about the castle and the Inland Revenue [we always suspected oddness from both places.]
grannyactivist did you audibly gulp when you saw your In-laws huge house? Did you complain to DH that he could have told you he lived in a mansion? Did his father even have a proper name or just introduce himself as Essex, Arundel, or whatever?

Quite fancy calling mine Chatsworth. Has a nice ring to it.....

On a slight tangent (for annodomini) - was Abbotsford in St Andrews named after Sir Walter Scott's house?

Probably was, originally, Alie. Before it became a University residence it was the Abbotsford Hotel. I was one of the first students in it.

The soap was dished out as requested from a locked cupboard roses and the towels went to the laundry periodically - someone was deputed to collect the used ones and handed out a fresh one. There were no roller towels or dryers in the loos at the time. I think that changed in the early 90s before I left in 1996.

There were certainly some "odd bods" working there, real characters, and when I first started all the women over about 40 were always called "Miss..." or "Mrs...". A bit like in "Are you being served".

Thanks anno - I learn things every day! I never knew it was so new.

.....to continue - why 'Chattan' for MacIntosh Hall? - and why the MacIntosh to start with?

Yes, I did sort of have a 'wow' moment when I saw it,but the address gave me a clue. Actually, although my parents in law's house was classical Georgian they made it into a warm family home where the kitchen (and the Aga) were the hub. So although it was a 'posh' house from the outside it was homely and I always felt welcomed there. My youngest daughter has never got over it being sold, it was where she spent all her holidays as a child and she spent many years feeling bereft when it went out of the family. My mother (who lives in a small 3 bed roomed council house) was always very comfortable there when she joined us for holiday visits and used to enjoy strolling out into the fruit garden and coming back in with bowls full of luscious ripe fruits.
As for my father in law; he's the loveliest man and apart from having a huge intellect and being incredibly knowledgeable about all sorts of things, he's quite ordinary.