house names

Dad always named the house we lived in Gibside after it being the estate his grand parents lived , and he was baptised in the private chapel there

Reason for Chattan/McIntosh Hall? Chattan

New? Alie? that was,as you well know, 56 years ago! McIntosh Hall is John and Eliza McIntosh Hall though I never thought to find out who they were. Clan McIntosh was also known as Clan Chattan, as your link explains, Elegran.

Have I missed something, with this talk of McIntosh Hall?We are into esoteric Gaelic mysteries now.
grannyactivist you sound to have been very lucky in all kinds of ways, not least having lovely in-laws.
This thread is proving very interesting in all kinds of ways.We have even had a sniff of Royalty, as well as The Inland Revenue [motto; we always get our man, with or without soap.]
Am just waiting now for someone who lives in a windmill.Or a converted chapel.

Sorry, we're on about St Andrews student residences!

I learn more, anno and Elegran. I hadn't heard of the Chattan Confederation.....

I only ever looked up the Fighting Littles....and my ancestors don't seem to connect with thm, although Scottish!

Take to the hills, men!The Campbells are coming.

anno, I meant it was new THEN.

Not a chapel or a windmill roses but we live in a converted Victorian Board School

nanav123, you must be a Bowes-Lyon. Nice to know that the contents of Gibside were removed to Glamis when the house was no longer lived in.

I lived near to a working windmill, not in the countryside but on the outskirts of a shipbuilding town.

This is all fascinating, what a mixed bunch we are.

I remember that windmill, we used to pass it when we were on the bus, a beautiful area

Sorry, I'm repeating myself - a sure sign the DGC have over stayed!!

No such luck Relative of estate worker

You asked about Rectories - well yes, but it had stoped being called that as it was in fact only early 1800s and the 1600s Old Rectory was only two houses away, we were The Rectory and New Rectory was two miles away. We renamed it The Wrecktory but the people who now own it didn't find that funny so called it Corner House. I think Maytum Cottage was my favourite though.

I now live in a far smaller and newer house, and it too has a name but no number. I don't like the name but don't feel the urge to change it any longer. the houses in this lane were all built in the late 50s and early 60s in the style of Suffolk cottages, steep upper storeys but with tiles instead of thatch. It drives the postmen mad when they are new, and they have to trail along behind older postmen at first until they know where we all are. My current house is called Jorvik, meaning York in viking, so presumably a couple from Yorkshire lived here at some point. Definitely not a 'posh' thing, it's very common in the countryside to have small houses and no numbers. We even have a lane without a name of any kind in this village, with three houses in it, right in the centre of lots of other old cottages.

The very first house I lived in with a name was called 'Tumbleweeds', how can I have forgotten that one. Built in 1850, I have no idea how it came by its name. It was a much-extended farm cottage when we bought it. The original was a small farm cottage, two up, two down and a loft. When I was shopping in Tesco one day the woman on the till (back in the days when you put your address on the back of the cheque!) screeched 'Oh! That's where I used to live!' She was one of eleven children, her father was a farm labourer. This must have been in the early 80s and I would have said that she was around 50 at that time. The extensions must have been added soon after WW2.

After Maytum Cottage I went to Bleak House, so called because Charles Dickens stayed there for quite some time and wrote some of the book there, not because it is bleak! he did get around, I reckon he saved on fuel bills by staying in other people's houses.

That's very interesting jane I think you have had a lot of good names for the houses you've lived in and I quite like Jorvik too [there's a Jorvik centre in York.]Was Bleak House in Kent?I know C D did stay in a lot of places, but settled in Broadstairs [I think] for a while.Did it inspire you to start a novel?What is the difference [if any] between a vicarage and a rectory? I've never been sure about that.
kitty I have seen lots of lovely converted school houses on tv aren't you lucky? Again, what is the difference between a Victorian village school and a V board school?

Rectors historically had some kind of financial investment in their property and were often paid tithes. They were responsible for upkeep of various, if not all, aspects of their lives. They often bought their positions, many years ago. Vicars usually had a house that came with the job automatically, a salary for the job and no tithes.

In this village, my friend lives in The Parsonage - no idea how that one happens!

Yes, Bleak House is in Kent, not the one in Rochester though. It is in mid Kent and currently inhabited by one of my best friends.

The Outlaws live in The Old School House in their village. It must have been freezing a couple of hundred years ago. Two very large rooms in the original downstairs, only one with a fireplace and chimney, the 2 teachers lived upstairs so heaven only knows what happened if they married, I suppose they had to move out. Maybe they only ever employed 2 unmarried women. There are lots of extensions now, it is right next to the church and certainly it is impossible to forget what time it is!

My mother, like me, lives in a village of no numbers and only house names. Hers is called Woodside, she has a vast wooded area of hillside at the bottom of her garden.

My Daughters house is called ''Dallas'' lol not their choice, it was already named when they moved in. Mine is ''Park House'' as I am on the last piece of park land

roses, As I understand it, board schools were made compulsory for all villages from 1870. Our village already had a church school but, as it was a big village even then, a farmer gave a field and donations were sought from wealthy people in the area.

This school was extended twice but had no upper floor. We have been told that the rooms had such high ceilings because the regulations stated that there had to be a specific cubic footage of space allocated to each child and it was cheaper to allocate it upwards! We have three bedrooms, a study, sitting room and two bathrooms in the roof space!!

The original building had one long room, about seventy feet by twenty, with one pot bellied wood burning stove at one end.

One of my sons-in-law went to school here and finds it quite weird coming in via the 'Girl's' entrance which is now our front door.

Our first house was on a Wimpey estate, number 13. I called it 'Firdene', unofficially.

Songbird I think I may have changed my house name if it had been Dallas but Park House sounds rather nice.
Thanks kitty and also Jane for your information on rectories and board schools, now I know the difference.
Daisy I like the Firdene for 13.

The tendency for village houses not to have numbers, or even names has made tracing the history of our house difficult. Looking at the census records, they name our road and then the census addresses go; cottage, cottage, cottage, cottage........etc. there are occasional breaks with something like 'shop' or 'forge' interpolated but with houses having been demolished, combined and rebuilt, businesses all have long gone and the buildings demolished that trying to work out which run of cottages represents our house is impossible.

Is this your house in Uk flicketyB or the house in France?I did think that here in the UK all houses now HAD to have a street name and number and postcode, but maybe not?

Ours has no number - nor do any of the others on the road. (In the UK).

rosesarered I speak of England and in the past. All the houses in our road have names and/or numbers now, but historically this is relatively recent, probably only been required for the last 75 years or so.

In France we live in a farm house with a farm name that can be traced into the mists of time. The earliest reference is around 1400.

To be fair we have records for our own house going back to the 15th century, but we would like to know who actually lived on the premises on the dates the census was taken The census takes place every 10 years and census returns from 1841 to 1911 are now available online so when researching the history of the house, we should, in theory, be able to trace who lived in the house for every decade between the those two dates, but because throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th century there were neither names nor numbers for all the cottages in the village it is impossible to identify which run of cottages in the census makes up our house.