All I've ever known about our house is what were in the deeds and what our local historian could tell me which was quite sketchy. Most of the deeds had got lost during the 100 odd years of buying and selling of the house. I knew it was built by Walter Waller and his profession.
I did Google him but there wasn't any information about him until I found the above advert. When I re read the advert a couple of weeks ago, I noticed it said that his wigs, costumes etc could be hired by Bro. Waller, Stanhope Lodge which meant he was a mason. { I knew that as my Dad was a mason } I looked up Stanhope Lodge and they had a page of their history and, to my delight ..........
..... there was a photograph of him when he was Worshipful Brother in 1889. It's a bit blurry but it's lovely to see the person who built our house.
Stanhope Lodge used to meet in The Thicket Hotel, Anerley in the London Borough of Bromley. This is where Walter would have gone to his Masonic meetings in the 1880's.
Walter lived with his wife, Elizabeth Rendell Quick who was originally from Somerset, in Paradise House { above } I don't know if they had any children but could find out more by looking at the 1911 census. I always find it difficult to navigate the census sight and then they ask me for money to see anything ! I think that Walter had done very well in life to have built and lived in such a house ..... it must be worth around £4,000,000 today if not more.
This is the back of Paradise House ..... it's in the woods about a mile from our house.
Now, on a slightly more modest scale 😂🤣😂, this is our house { in the snow ..... the only one I can find at the moment } but, you can see some similarities ..... I think he built ours and two others either side of ours at the same time that he built his. The brick work is very similar and the ridge tiles. He probably got a good deal on a job lot of bricks & tiles etc !!! There are some photographs of the inside of Paradise House and, I have to say, I prefer much that he did in our house.
I did have a page of the 1911 census which showed who was living in our house but I can't put my hands on it at the moment ..... I remember that the man of the house was a tennis player !
Well, there we are ..... that's all I know about the history of my house. I would love to find out more but I often come to a dead end but it was lovely to find a photograph of Walter.
Oh, I did email the secretary of Stanhope Lodge about three weeks ago to see if they had any more information on Walter but they haven't replied ..... they probably think my email is a scam 🤣.
XXXX
all photographs via Google apart from the last one of my house
