My house at Copthorne Bank

Home was a semi-detached red brick built cottage, with the date 1903 fixed to the front of the house. The style is really typical of the area - houses like this can still be seen in Redhill, Horley and East Grinstead, to name but a few places. Brick was a cheap material, and could be rapidly produced. There was a furnace at Crawley Down, which probably produced the bricks for my house.



The house itself was arranged over two floors, with three bedrooms upstairs.

There was a front room (which we would call a lounge), a kitchen (where we ate as the dining room) - this had a larder in the under stair space, and a scullery, where the ray burn (always on and making the house smell of animal feed) and the sinks were installed. My parents had the front bedroom, my brother and I shared the middle room, and my sister had the back room. 

Next door

Luxury comforts? Gardening

Other resources

Victorian brick firing

The adjoining property was also owned by my parents and upon the death of my Mother in 2000 ( 90) paper receipts showed a purchase price of £375 for the pair in 1948. The tenants Perce and Monica Maynard who had Sid Smith as a lodger ( adopted? ) from Dr Barnado’s. Sid eventually became the village postman.

A Bathroom was added to No 3 in the early 50’s extending back from the kitchen with a separate flush toilet. AT this time a second hand Rayburn was added to provide cooking, local heating and domestic hot water. Heating of the dining room was by an open coal / wood fire which was quite effective. A similar arrangement in the front room, which was only used at Christmas, was only effective at puffing out clouds of smoke into the room rather than heating it. Anything more than 1 metre from the fire remained frozen. The bathroom extension removed the need for the traditional “Tin “ bath ( actually galvanised steel ) which was traditionally used on Friday night.