Posted by Mike Field on April 06, 2003 at 01:02:47 from 203.26.98.4 user mikefield.
In Reply to: Re: BECKFOOT unmentionables posted by Ed Kiser on April 05, 2003 at 19:54:10:
I grew up in a house that had both attic and boxroom.
The upper floor of the house contained two large rooms, one each side of the stairwell, and joined by a landing about 10' long and 3' wide -- really a short passage running along the house parallel with the ridge of the roof but south of it.
If, after you climbed the stairs, you turned to the right you immediately entered the room on the western side of the house. This was originally a billiard room. It had a large balcony outside overlooking the tennis-court. If you turned left along the landing you passed a short steep flight of stairs (almost but not quite a ladder) before entering the room on the east. The stairs of course led to the attic, which as kids we referred to as "tip-top," and which had windows to both the north and south.
On the northern side of each of the two main rooms, a long narrow walk-in cupboard led from a door in the corner of the room back under the north side of the attic. Each cupboard was fitted with a large shelf and full-length hanging space, and we used them as wardrobes. They met back-to-back under the attic, occupying the space under the northern 3' of it, and stretching also across the stairwell several steps away from the landing.
From the eastern room (ie away from the stairs, and in fact my bedroom,) a second door next to the cupboard door led to a big space under the remainder of the attic. This was the box-room, and a great place it was for storing suitcases and trunks and camping gear and other stuff only rarely in use.
The house was built in 1918. The picture (taken with my Brownie Box camera about forty years later) shows how it appeared from the south-west.
How germane all this is to the layout of Beckfoot I'm not at all sure of course. But writing about it has been a nice little nostalgia trip....