Friday 19 February 2016

Five On Friday - The Tollhouse

Hello, thank you for dropping in, especially if you have come here via the lovely Amy at Love Made My Home, you are all very welcome.  Today is the first anniversary of Five On Friday so first of all THANK YOU to Amy for setting it up and hosting for us. 
 
The Best Beloved and I have been back to visit Blists Hill Victorian Town in Madeley in Telford and today I would like to show you the tollhouse.  Designed by Thomas Telford, the county surveyor after whom the new town was named, it was built in the early nineteenth century and stood on the Holyhead Road, now the A5, north of Shrewsbury.  When the road was widened in the early 1970s, the tollhouse was due to be demolished but instead it was rescued, dismantled brick-by-brick and rebuilt here at the open air museum.
 

 
Shall we go inside?  If we go through the parlour at the front of the house we can go straight into the kitchen, the heart of the home, where the fire was lit for warmth and for cooking -
 


 
There are two bedrooms; here is the master bedroom, with a wooden cradle on the left, right beside the bed -
 


 
and here is the bedroom in which the children would have slept, four or five of them -
 
 


The patchwork cover on the bed and the rag rug on the floor were matters of necessity in times when money was short and nothing could be wasted.
 
Outside the house, there is a garden in which vegetables were grown to feed the family.  There is also one of these -
 
 

Do you know what it is?  The lower building on the left with the wall around it is a pig sty.  Every year, the family would rear a pig, fattening it up before slaughtering it for the family table.  The winter frosts would clean the empty sty before a new piglet was bought the following spring.  The building attached to the right is the privy (toilet).  Well, I suppose it made sense to keep all your stinky smells in the same place!  Gentle reader, I have a special reason for showing you this little building: I live in a little Victorian terraced house and when I moved in, there was in the garden the ruins of a little brick building.  These same ruins were in our neighbours' gardens too, and I eventually discovered that each house was built with a pig sty in its garden.  However, having worked out the footprint of the sty, we just couldn't work out what the extra bit was for and it was only when we visited Blists Hill and I saw this, several years later, that I realised it was the privy.  So there would have been a set-up exactly like this in my back garden.
 
I hope you have enjoyed my five pictures of the tollhouse at Blists Hill.  If you would like to find out more about it, have a look here, and if you have time, pop over to Love Made My Home and see what everyone else is sharing this week.
 
See you soon.
 
Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x




28 comments:

  1. Loved your five photos. I'm so glad they resited the toll house for everyone to enjoy. The question is, do you keep a pig in your sty :) Have a great weekend. Barbara X

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  2. What an interesting place to visit. Lovely photos. xx

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  3. Your header photo is stunning! So calm and soft.

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  4. I enjoyed this visit, it looks such a cute abode but I guess in reality life was pretty hard. Thanks for sharing
    Caz xx

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  5. How interesting, my Grandad kept pigs on his allotment. He had a Shetland pony and small cart and went collecting people's vegetable peelings to make swill for the pigs. If you every get the chance to go to Beamish you would like it
    Jill
    Kiln Fired Art

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  6. Lovely post, a step back in time,, nice virtual visit.

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  7. An interesting post, I love hearing about historic buildings and this just hit the spot.

    Diana

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  8. I'm glad we have moved on from a pigsty and a privy in the garden these days, although lookiñg out of the window at the moment, my garden is a bit of a pigsty in itself! x

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  9. Lovely! I love Blists Hill and the toll house was one of my favourite buildings, I'm glad it was saved. How wonderful to have the pig sty and privy at the bottom of your garden. I remember outside loos as a child our house in Leicester had one backing on to the house with two seats one higher than the other. So glad I live today and have indoor facilities:)

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  10. I love social history so much. I find it so interesting to see how little we had back then and how well they seemed to manage. I'm glad we no longer have outside privies but sometimes wonder if we haven't lost something in this technological age

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  11. What an interesting post! I wish all houses were built with a pig sty these days! thanks for sharing

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  12. I have been to Blists Hill several times but never been in the toll house. I found the foundations to a building next to the privy in my garden. (It's still there but it's used as a storeroom now!) I wonder if my foundations were for a pigsty?

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  13. My grandmother for many years had an outhouse, they lived out in the country with no running water. We always thought it was so funny when we'd go to visit.

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  14. What an interesting post, I like to imagine everyone's pig living in the back garden. I bet none of it was wasted. I'm feeling slightly sorry for them living next to the privy, but I guess they had regular company. Lovely to see the handmade quilt, blanket and rug.

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  15. Very curious to have a bricked in pig sty and privy. I've only seen these made of wood.

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  16. That looks like a great place to visit. How great that all the houses had pig sties in the garden, obviously your privy is empty now, my grandad's wasn't at his house in Ireland. I used to always use the outside loo for the novelty, but we did only visit in the summer ha! Have a lovely weekend xx

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  17. I loved this little visit to the Tollhouse -thanks for taking us along :)

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  18. I enjoy visits like these with so much history to enjoy. It's nice to meet you Mrs. Tiggywinkle. My blogger profile will show my face as Mrs. Tiggywinkle a Beatrix Potter character I'm fond of for personal reasons. The link that will take you to my blog is on Amy's link-up not in this comment section. Have a wonderful weekend.

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  19. I'd love to visit this Victorian town with my family. I'll look and see if it's not too far from us - it would be a nice day out on a school holiday. Have a lovely weekend!

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  20. So interesting! I would love to visit Blists Hill one day. Fascinating for you with the sty/privy combination and finding out what your own "ruins" were!!! Thank you so much for joining in the anniversary of Five On Friday, I really do appreciate it so much! Have a good weekend! xx

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  21. But what a handsome privy! Years ago, when Missouri had outhouses (as we called them), they were made of unpainted wood with big cracks between the boards where the wind could whistle through and freeze your tush.

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  22. This is such a snug & very tiny cottage! At one time my two sisters and one brother and I all shared a bedroom with two bunkbeds. That's quite a nice solid-looking privy! My uncles used to entertain themselves as teens by pushing over outhouses, of course they were always wooden structures here :)
    I guessed about the pig pen as they are often bricked around on old farms here too. How cool that you have the same set up in your own yard. Time to get a pig!
    Wendy

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  23. What a charming little cottage. I'm so glad we don't have privies these days. But the brick one looks sturdier than the wooden ones I remember from visiting my grandparents many years ago. And to think the visit solved a little mystery about your own garden!

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  24. I enjoy visiting living history museums and I'm glad the tollhouse was saved and rebuilt. Blists Hill looks like a fascinating place. Many of your readers of a certain age will have been very familiar with outhouses and privies! Interesting that you found out more about what had been constructed in your own garden and the use of the little buildings there from the remains of the brick footprint.

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  25. I love Blists Hill such a fascinating place, and it always triggers memories and love how it has answered your question about your out buildings too.
    I remember the doctors house they have there when it was in situ in Shropshire I used to pass every week on my way to visit my grand parents.

    Angela - Garden Tea Cakes and Me

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  26. Such fun history! I loved this post -and especially knowing that this history could even be traced back to your own garden. So cool! :) I'm linking late due to a trip last week - but still wanted to join the party. Lol thanks for sharing and blessings on the rest of your week. xoxo

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  27. Thank goodness Blists Hill was rescued, and how amazing that visiting this place you were able to find out more about your own garden!
    It was really interesting to see your photographs and read all about the Tollhouse. How life has changed since those times, thank goodness!

    Barbara xx

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  28. How interesting to find out something about your own house and garden while you were out!
    Happy belated birthday to you, Mrs T, the daffodils were a lovely thought xxx

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