Posted by Ed Kiser on August 11, 2007 at 15:48:28 from 205.188.116.198 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Re: Beckfoot-number of stairwells/ house building style posted by Jock on August 11, 2007 at 00:02:54:
There are other rooms that are even less well known as to their location. One is the bathroom, the other is the box room (probably more of a storage room, a place to put suitcases and camping gear when not actively in use.) I am not sure even which floor these items are in, although I suspect the bathroom is upstairs, but the box room could be anywhere.
"Mother's room" was mentioned as to possibly be used when the GA was first considered invading Beckfoot, but Nancy did not want that room to be used by anybody. I do not KNOW this, but my feelings about it is that the mother's room was across the hall from Nancy's (and Peggy's of course.) It would be next to the kitchen's upper story.
Captain Flint's bedroom, used by Dick his first night in PM, seems to be across the hall from the guest room, at what I call to be the FRONT of the house (the end away from the kitchen, which I would call the rear.)
To look at the side of the house from the point of view of the pigeon loft, the side that is not viewed from the boathouse, I get this impression. From that viewer's point of view, the CF bedroom is at the upper right, Mother's room is at the upper left. The dining room is at the bottom left, and at the bottom right... there is no evidence of what is across the hall from the study. Just guessing here, but perhaps that is a formal parlour, with the kind of furniture one is afraid to sit on, unless during a house call of the local Vicar while balancing a cup of tea on one knee. A lot of guessing on that room.
The front door is viewed in the drawing of the D's looking down through the trees at the gathering of the firefighters preparing to look for the missing GA. Above that front door is a window that provides light to the stairs and upper hallway. There are no other windows showing on the front of the house. So the GA's room and CF's room, both at the front upstairs, only have a window opening to the side of the house. There is a drawing of Nancy fixing up Dot's bedroom with the Cook being critical of such horrors that shows a window looking out in the general direction of the boathouse and river, but the front wall, which has no window, is where Nancy is tacking up a large banner of the skull and crossbones.
The location of the main stairs is also not precisely described. The front window above the front door provides lighting for it. Perhaps it is this stairwell that occupied the space I above referred to as the parlour. Reference is made to the "landing" which I presume is called such as it is at the top of the stairs. When prepping the two bedrooms for the arrival of the D's, Nancy and Peggy go between the guest room and CF's bedroom using the LANDING in crossing. This suggests that when coming up to the top of the stairs, one is about to step out on the landing, and is facing that upstairs window at the front of the house, directly above the front door, ready to turn right to CF's room or left to the guest room, with one door being directly at the top of the stairs, and the other accessed by walking a few steps along the landing to get to it, with the main upstairs hall continuing down that side beside the stairwell, widening once the stairs are passed, to provide access to Mother's room and Nancy's room.
I still have a hard time placing with any degree of assurance the passageway, but I do feel the "garden door" is opening at the end of this facility. It seems to "get in the way" however if extended on to the other side of the house, as it separates the dining room from the kitchen, perhaps using two doors to get from one of these rooms to the other, which is awkward when Cook is carrying in plates of food from the kitchen to the dining room and trying to negotiate two doors just to get by that passageway. Maybe for that reason, the dining room door is swinging, so it can be opened by simply backing through it, and the passageway itself is really just a part of the kitchen. Dick ran through the passageway to get to the outside to access the pigeon loft, so perhaps that door to the outside is really the kitchen door, suggesting the passageway is really just a part of the kitchen. There used to be the custom for the kitchen to be built as a separate building away from the house, because of the heat the stove generated during the Summer was not wanted in the main house, as well as the greater possibility of FIRE getting out of hand from that cooking stove fire, so being separated gave a chance to save the main house even when the kitchen extra building was burned. To avoid the need to walk through the outdoors from kitchen to main house, perhaps that space in between was enclosed with a roof, thus making what was to be called the passageway, with a door at both ends.
If you are looking for precise text in AR's words to prove the above image, I'm afraid I cannot point out such to you, as admittedly, quite a bit of the above description is from my own visions, that so far as the text goes, is not contradictiing the text, so I feel it MIGHT be true - but please don't take my descriptions as being the absolute truth of the matter. I know there are others that have different floor plans in mind. To PROVE one design over another is really just a matter of guessing.
At least, I THINK AR's text does not disprove my image, but if such can be pointed out to me, would love to see it.
This topic, the BECKFOOT FLOORPLAN, needs to be rehashed on the forum at least once every year or so, with time out taken to discuss the plumbing, and the source of water, the location of the bathroom, and why that part of the lawn with the sundial in it is called the GARDEN when the only thing growing there seems to be grass and an occasional daisy.
Well, there it is, gang, the View From Pompey's Head - go tear it up.
(Try typing my last name, using "touch typing" but with the right hand shifted just one key too far to the right, left hand still in proper position. I surprise myself sometimes with that one...)
Ed Kiser, Kentucky