House plans for a typical, recently-built housing estate in the early 1900s

The house on the Huxley Estate where my mother lived as a child in Edmonton (now Enfield) in the early 1900s must have been reasonably typical of other houses on that and similar estates, although of course there would have been some differences. Quite apart from personal choices of furnishing, the houses improved in facilities and finish as each new road was built.

My mother left detailed written descriptions of her childhood home: 116 Lopen Road, Edmonton. The plans shown below are based on what she wrote and a sketch by my cousin, John Cole. His sketch was based on a current estate agent's description of a house in Lopen Road and his own recollections of a similar house on the Huxley Estate in the 1940s which belonged to a rather elderly resident who had probably kept things much as they were over the years. That house was 120 Warwick Road. It was John who wrote his recollections of the home front in Edmonton during the Second World War.

John has pointed out that the houses, although terraced, were built in pairs, so, for example, 116 and 118 had adjacent front doors, and 116 shared its chimney stack with 114, and so on. So the floor plans of alternate houses would be the mirror image of one another.

Information on the individual rooms will follow in due course as I transcribe more of my mother's recollections.

If you were looking over 116 Lopen Road in the early 1900s, you might see the following areas in the following order:

• the front garden
• the porch
• the hall, generally known as the passage
• the parlour - about 3.23m from side to side and 3.79m from front to back into the window bay
• the kitchen
• the coal hole (where the coalman delivered the coal)
• the scullery with a built-in copper for heating water - about 2.61m from side to side and 3.41m from front to back into the sink alcove
• the alcove (which provided privacy for washing oneself at the sink which had the only tap in the house)
• the yard, the tiled area outside (which stored the food safe and the mangle and tin baths for washdays)
• the lavatory
• the back garden.

Turning back into the house, you would climb the stairs to the upper floor where you might see the rooms in the following order:

• the landing
• the front bedroom - about 4.26m from side to side and 3.15m from front to back
• the middle bedroom - about 2.56m from side to side and 3.62m from front to back
• the back bedroom, also known as the offroom and much later, the bathroom - about 2.64m from side to side (including the bath cupboard) and 3.29m from front to back
• the bath cupboard.

Gas was laid on for lighting; heating was by open coal fires; hot water was by the coal-fired copper in the scullery or by a kettle heated on the range; the outside lavatory flushed.

As an example of the changes which distinguished the various houses over time, John has pointed out that the house at 120 Warwick Road, on which he based his recollections, had a large earthenware bath in the scullery, which, when not in use, had a cover over it which doubled as a worktop. He suggests that the bath may have been discontinued in the later-built houses as it was large, had a rough internal finish and would have taken a lot of water - which had of course to be heated by the copper or a kettle.