The 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 styme is really typical of the area - houses like this can still be seen in Redhill, Horley and Esat 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 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.

Luxury comforts?

Up until the early 1950’s there was no bathroom, just an outside bucket toilet. This was not unusual! I must have been traumatised by this as I have compensated in my own house by installing bathrooms wherever possible!

A bathroom was added to the scullery, and was decorated until the late 90s with pink psychadelic 60s wallpaper.

The only heating was by open fires, fuelled with wood or coal. There was also a large “Copper” for heating water. This was common at this time.

Other resources

Victorian brick firing

The Clothes were always washed on Mondays, no washing machines, clothes would be washed by hand, rinsed and then put in a wringer or Mangol to remove the final water. They were then hung out to dry on the washing line to dry before being Ironed with a solid flat iron, later replaced by Electric Irons and Electric Steam Irons.

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.