I love most of the old wallpaper in the house and I wish we could have kept a lot of it. Nearly every room had patches of damp though, causing some of the paper to peel, and sadly it all needs to be stripped off for modern day things like electric to be installed into the building. I decided to try and keep a sample of paper from each room to either frame and put back into the rooms once complete, or use for craft projects.
I started one afternoon saving pieces and made my way from room to room doing so until I got to the first floor bedroom where I thought I would take a piece from the cupboard door as this would be easy to remove.
When I started peeling the wallpaper off I saw there was some newspaper behind. I peeled off enough to find a date – 16th of April 1939!! This must have been when the room was last redecorated and therefore dated the wallpaper in this and probably most of the rooms to 1939. Upon peeling more off and revealing the headline I was stunned to find something so historical and was delighted that it had come off in one piece!
My mind wandered to the date and when the inhabitants of the house had wallpapered the room how little they knew of what was about to happen with WW2.
We have saved the newspaper and plan to frame it, to be displayed in the house once complete.
I wonder what more the house will reveal as we renovate….?
- Clare x
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