Hello from the colonies, well Canada any way.

The moderator was kind enough to approve my membership so I thought I would introduce myself. I have been following this group for many years. As an old home owner your topics and conversations have interest to me, and the occasional “grump of the day” always make me smile.
We (the wife and I) are restoring an 1880 gothic revival home in the Canada’s deep south just out side the town of Chatham Ontario, it backs onto the Thames River in county of Chatham Kent. It’s a larger home with absolutely no changes made to her. All original plaster walls, cornices and wood work, although it caught the dreaded white paint disease but we are slowly getting that fixed up.

She is not listed so I really have no red tape or authorization need to get any thing done although even if it was I would not need to go through jumps you folks have to.
I know by your standards a 140 year old home is not really old, maybe that’s why I enjoy reading the posts of really old homes. At the moment the uncovering of a 400 year old fire place has caught my interest.
That’s it for now. I dought I would have any relevant input to offer, at the least you can see how we do it here on the Thames River in the county of Chatham Kent in Ontario’s Deep South.
Ron

Hello - and Welcome! We don't all live in houses that are especially old you know - mine is late Victorian from 1899, and we have the occasional Edwardian (1901-1910) house appear as well.

More pictures please, in fact lots more pictures - I do like Gothic Revival, it would be interesting to see if what is called that in Canada is the same as what we have over here. From your small external picture it doesn't look as heavily embellished as ours - here's one that I would class as being at the plainer end of the scale externally (still stunning though!):-

http://www.treberfydd.com/

And some more prominent examples in London:-

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/gothic-revival-london

I'm only 1829, but listed and all that gubbins. Welcome to the forum

Feltwell said:

Hello - and Welcome! We don't all live in houses that are especially old you know - mine is late Victorian from 1899, and we have the occasional Edwardian (1901-1910) house appear as well.

More pictures please, in fact lots more pictures - I do like Gothic Revival, it would be interesting to see if what is called that in Canada is the same as what we have over here. From your small external picture it doesn't look as heavily embellished as ours - here's one that I would class as being at the plainer end of the scale externally (still stunning though!):-

http://www.treberfydd.com/

And some more prominent examples in London:-

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/gothic-revival-london

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There are Gothic revival houses very similar to Gothichome's near me. Here is an example that is at the top of my road!

I would be interested to see more photos too please! We don't get many international visitors round here, it's normally a local site for local people.

Well, thanks for the welcome. I am aware this foram has homes of many ages and styles but here in Canada any thing older than an occasional Georgian is a log cabin.
Feltwell, she has lost all of her fancy exterior trim. Over the years it has either been taken off or has fell off long before we bought it. The plan (or hope) should I live long enough is to get it replaced. There is a particular style of Gothic here generally referred to as Gothic cottage or Ontario gothic. This style hung on here long after it went out of style every were else.
Here is a link to the style, ours would have looked similar just much bigger.
http://www.ontarioarchitecture.com/gothicottage.htm
Here is a pic of of the river side of our home

Looking up from this corner you can see a church like look

Hi There and Welcome,

It matters not where you are or when the house was first built - personally I think 'Period' covers anything and everything.

Gothichome said:

I know by your standards a 140 year old home is not really old

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Well within our tolerances and all of us happy to help or just chat for that matter.

Gothichome said:

At the moment the uncovering of a 400 year old fire place has caught my interest.

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On/in the property? Tell us more, with pictures please.

All the best,
Cubist

Welcome to the forums Gothichome.

According to this article, https://www.savills.co.uk/blog/article/190304/residential-property/what-defines-a-period-property.aspx, WW1 is the cut-off date for 'period', but it's a pretty loose definition and I'm sure there are plenty of post-WW1 properties that would also qualify on emotional, if not simplistic numeric, grounds. Anyway, by either measure you're well qualified at 140 years!

My approx four hundred year old house isn't listed - odd but it has escaped notice for some reason.

Welcome. I have found this forum invaluable,

plasticpigeon said:

I would be interested to see more photos too please! We don't get many international visitors round here, it's normally a local site for local people.

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PP, I have no intention of getting involved with your countries immigration issues. :lol:
Cubist, I was referring to Spids project. Looks interesting. I actually learned a new term from you folks, ‘snug’. I can now sound smart pointing it out if I ever see a deep fireplace with seating on the sides.
Flyfisher, here we refer to homes a hundred years old or older century homes.
A good place to start with a tour is the front door.

The door knobs are a 1964 install, I have proper period hardware when it comes time to restore these doors.

TheSpid said:

My approx four hundred year old house isn't listed - odd but it has escaped notice for some reason.

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I think you dodged the bullet there.

Our place was built in the reign of QE1, G2 Listed which I admit gives me more latitude than the G2* and G1 afflicted, but nevertheless a real PITA if I want to do anything serious/or significant like maybe closing the points of entry for the local mouse population. :?

This is our home when we first took ownership.

As you can see, the trees are far to tall and to close to home. One of the first tasks was getting rid of it all. I almost could hear the home thanking me.

Folks, another picture. Further back in the conversation we briefly discussed our varge boards and gingerbread. Here you can see were it was attached. Some of the tenons are still held in the mortises by pegs.

In the nine years we have owned the home we still have not found a picture that showed what the fancy stuff looked like.

You couldn't just measure your bricks, Gothichome, could you? They look quite unusually proportioned. Both headers and stretchers if possible. You don't often see "Monk bond" used. I think yours is Common Monk Bond, but I'm not as familiar with Monk Bond as I should be.

Mike, our bricks are 2 1/2x4x8 long. They are a soft brick, and the dimensions are not a perfect size, or the shape all exactly the same. It was suggested to me by a historical fellow that they were probably made on site. As far as the monk bond, there are a few bigger homes in the area using it but the smaller homes seemed mostly to use a simple running bond.
Here is a picture of a wall that was never exposed to the elements.

At the time our home was being built they added a summer kitchen or scullery to the back of the home. It must have been added very shortly after the home was built. The quality of the brick laying is not nearly as good as the main house. The picture I posted is the main house wall that the add on was built against. It was plastered over. When I redid the summer kitchen I removed the plaster. The lime pointing still has the sharp edges from the trowel.

Gothichome said:

Mike, our bricks are 2 1/2x4x8 long. They are a soft brick, and the dimensions are not a perfect size, or the shape all exactly the same. It was suggested to me by a historical fellow that they were probably made on site. As far as the monk bond, there are a few bigger homes in the area using it but the smaller homes seemed mostly to use a simple running bond.
Here is a picture of a wall that was never exposed to the elements.

At the time our home was being built they added a summer kitchen or scullery to the back of the home. It must have been added very shortly after the home was built. The quality of the brick laying is not nearly as good as the main house. The picture I posted is the main house wall that the add on was built against. It was plastered over. When I redid the summer kitchen I removed the plaster. The lime pointing still has the sharp edges from the trowel.

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Odd, they looked longer than that. I'd be very surprised if they were made on site. Brickyards used to be set up all over the place, but only where there was a good supply of uniform clay.

Is that photo upside down? If not, then the ruled pointing has been done the wrong way up! But nice to see the white mortar, which always shows bricks off a whole lot better than grey.

Mike, the picture is right side up. Not sure what your referring to as ‘ruled pointing’ . As far as the manufacture of the bricks I would of expected the bricks to be more uniform in shape, size and colour if factory made. More research is in order.
Ron

The line made by the edge of the pointing trowel in the pointing is usually put at the top of the mortar joint, indenting the top, and putting an outward sloping face to the pointing. In your case, it is at the bottom, butting an inward slope to the face of the mortar, and creating a little ledge for moisture to sit on. Obviously it's fine, as it looks in great nick, and it's been like that for 100+ years, so absolutely nothing to worry about.....just curious.

A brickyard would still have made hand-made bricks. My point about them not being made on site is that you need both a good supply of clay and a purpose made kiln to produce bricks. Unless you've got a big hole in the ground, and signs of the base of an old building (often round), then the chances are they were hand-made off-site, and transported to site on a cart (or up the river).

MikeG said:

The line made by the edge of the pointing trowel in the pointing is usually put at the top of the mortar joint, indenting the top, and putting an outward sloping face to the pointing. In your case, it is at the bottom, butting an inward slope to the face of the mortar, and creating a little ledge for moisture to sit on. Obviously it's fine, as it looks in great nick, and it's been like that for 100+ years, so absolutely nothing to worry about.....just curious.

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I was doing some research recently while investigating and musing our very early Georgian inglenook, based on original appearance when constructed. We have the same finished pointing style, which would've originally been on show. Albeit internally obviously.

I've seen this style referred to as Struck, as opposed to Weather Struck being the more logical indentation you mention. Then again, I've also seen the outwards slope to the bottom as simply called Struck as well!?

Struck, in my understanding, doesn't include a line. It is just the mortar cut off flush at the face of the brickwork, rather than ironed in.