History of the Property – A Children’s Cottage Home

The former ‘Children’s Cottage Homes‘ of Old Penkridge Road, Cannock has had many previous occupancies throughout time explaining the historical quirky design of the houses.

In 1924 two semi-detached houses were erected to accommodate thirty two children, from the Poor Workhouse located in Wolverhampton Road. The two houses would accommodate thirty two children and they were connected for emergency purposes only by a single door.  The right house had a large girls dormitory whilst the left house had a large boys dormitory. In each home there was a sick room, separation room, larder, linen store scullery, kitchen, bathroom, boots room, lavatories and officials quarters. The site later became a Remand Home and then Lynwood Children’s Home. It is now in private residential use and has been converted to three residential houses.

Below you can see the boys having a photograph outside their side of the house.

Renovation of  the Hall Staircase

Renovation is often a time consuming but rewarding exercise.  It is often in today’s throwaway society so easy to strip away our past.  This has been a rewarding project to be involved in the renovation of this beautiful Victorian staircase, helping to preserve the history and integrity of the house which has had a colourful past.

Below you can see the Before and After pictures of the Staircase restoration.

 

Original Oak Handrail Restoration

The staircase had 90 years of white gloss paint encased on it, it was not until the stripping of the handrail began it became evident that there was an original beautiful oak handrail hidden beneath the tiresome paint work. Unfortunately to the home owners disappointed the rest of the staircase was not Oak, but Pine, so the best way forward was to strip off all the layers of paintwork and repaint with a nice new coat of white satin paint. The Oak handrail was varnished to give it a matt appearance.

Bespoke Newel Cap Restoration

When the house was purchased there were ball caps situated on top of the previous original  Victorian square newel caps, so these would have been added at a latter date. The original detailed square caps are dating back to 1924, therefore, it was a important part of the staircase restoration to restore these caps and make bespoke matching ones in Buckley’s joinery shop. The bespoke hand made newel cap is shown on pictures three and four and look much more in keeping on the staircase than the previous ball caps that we removed.

The life has been restored back into the tiresome hallway giving it a glowing beautiful elegant finished staircase for this 1920’s property.

It has been great to be involved in a restoration project, if you need some restoration work on your stair parts please get in touch and we would love to help you preserve the integrity of your staircase.

For more information regarding staircases or what we do here at Buckley Loft Conversions, please visit our Stairs Page and Stairs Gallery for more advise and inspiration.