I am writing this post in the smallest of the upstairs rooms. In all there are five rooms in the house plus a kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen was once the scullery, and it was built with a concrete floor with a gradient leading to a drain. This enabled any overflow of water from the washing boiler or the Belfast sink to easily flow to the drain. I don’t know why it was called a Belfast sink other than it was made there. It was a large, deep, oblong porcelain basin ideal for lots of washing. Either plates or clothes. I remember an Aunt in north London who used to bath her toddlers in the Belfast sink that she had.
What we call the dining room would have been the kitchen and it would have had a coal fired range and a box bed. The latter is probably unique to Glasgow the tenement flats that were rising at the time that my house was built. The box bed was a raised wooden box with mattress on top. It had storage underneath and was boxed in with wooden walls at each end and a curtain for privacy. It may have been used by a live in domestic servant or a member of the family. Most houses and tenement flats of that time had one. They have now all been removed as people began to renovate and modernise their homes.
The front room was the Drawing room for receiving visitors and guests while upstairs on the half landing was the bathroom. I have no idea what the 1910 bathroom looked like, but it would have been interesting to see what the bathtub looked like. The WC cistern would have been a familiar tank on the wall with a chain pull. Up a small flight of stairs there are three rooms. The first is the large bedroom which faces the back garden, then the large front room which would have been the sitting room for the family, but which is now another bedroom. Lastly, there is the room that I am writing in, which would have been a small bedroom. It still is but it also doubles as my study. About 20 years ago we had the floor of this small room sanded and varnished. This makes it look and feel warm with the honey-coloured floorboards. It is simply furnished with a wooden bed made by the London firm Litvinoff and Fawcett and it also has an eclectic mix of framed pictures and family stuff on the wall behind where I tap away on the computer. A cosy room to occupy my history writing activities.
Nothing has been changed by me or my wife since living here during the past 37 years. If anything, we have faithfully respected the original layout of the building. We observed that some modernisation had occurred in the 1960’s or 70’s and this was probably done at the prompting of television DIY enthusiasts such as Barry Bucknall.
Bucknell often demonstrated techniques to ‘modernise’ older properties, most typically using cheap materials including hardboard and plywood to cover up architectural detail such as period doors and fireplaces, which at that time were considered unfashionable. This earned Bucknell the moniker ‘Bodger’ Bucknell. By the 1990s, some critics argued that he was largely responsible for millions of home owners altering their properties to a style that, in turn, is now considered dated again. Such as the hardwood panels that were pinned to all of our interior doors and which have now all been removed.
I wonder if it felt anything like this in 1910, the year in which George Anderson, the builder, satisfied himself that No.7 Earlspark Avenue was complete and could be sold, or disposed of. How did the first residents arrive? Was it a horse driven vehicle that brought all the furniture and fittings? Or perhaps a new motor-powered truck or van?
It was not far to travel because the first resident was living locally at the time.
Her name was Agnes Scott, and she was living at the time of the purchase of 7 Earlspark Avenue, in Cromartie Avenue. This is a short street of terraced villas also built by George Anderson and is located around the corner from number 7, perhaps about five minutes away. Cromartie is how it was spelt then, but now more familiar as Cromarty Avenue.
I have no record of how long Agnes had been living in Cromarty Avenue but she was definitely not living there in 1901.
Agnes Scott was living with her parents and brother in Dennistoun, an area of east Glasgow with a lot of history. Her birth registration was in the District of High Church, Glasgow. This was the registration district for Dennistoun until 1874, when it changed its boundary name. High Church relates to Glasgow Cathedral, although part of the Church of Scotland, which does not believe in government by Bishops, was very much a part of the Kirk ministry. The district was called High Church but has no connection with Anglo Catholicism. Her father was Hugh Scott, and he was a Mercantile Clerk, responsible for the shipping and dispatching of goods. His wife, also Agnes Scott, had the maiden name of Leggat. Both parents were born and brought up in Lanarkshire, Hugh in Larkhall and Agnes in Hamilton.
Later Hugh began to work for the Corporation Gas Office as a clerk. In the 1881 Census return Hugh and Agnes are both aged 45 and they are living at 583 Duke Street with their seven children. This is a tenement building with three floors of probably three apartment houses with shops beneath. This would mean there were six houses with similar families living in this block. The box bed was an essential extra bedroom within the scullery come dining room. How Mrs Scott managed this is probably a secret only known by millions of other families in Britain at that time.
I cannot find a Census return for the family for 1891 but ten years later Hugh and Agnes were living in Shettleston, further along from Dennistoun. The household member in the return were: Hugh and Agnes, both aged 65; Agnes, their daughter, aged 29 and her brother George aged 24. Hugh is a Clerk of Stoves and I assume that he is working the section of the Corporation Gas Company that sells gas appliances. Agnes junior is described as a Gas Stove Salesroom Worker. Father and daughter are working together. George is a Commercial Clerk and may well have been working for the Gas Company also. Five younger and older siblings had left home.
Between 1901 and 1908, Hugh and Agnes, with Agnes their daughter and George, had moved to 62 Cromarty Avenue in Newlands.
In July 1908, while waiting for a train at Cathcart Station, a short distance from where he lived, Hugh had a heart attack and died on the platform. George was with him.
Two years later Miss Agnes Scott signed the Disposition of the property at 7 Earlspark Avenue and became the first resident of my house.
