# Budgerigar house..



## Mikeymutt (Jul 11, 2017)

Seen this pop up on the forum a few times now and really liked the look of it.then a friend just handed me the location.i like friends like that,so on the way back from Scotland I popped in.the house is fairly stripped but some really nice features and some lovely bits in there.including a few axes.the room with the three bird cages hanging up was quite surreal.there was lots of sheds out back.i think I spent more time in them than the house rooting about.he obviously liked doing lots of diy work as lots of tools and machinery.and someone was into horse riding as there was a shed with all certificates on the wall.and another shed with lots of bridles and some saddles and other stuff in it.










































































































We did have a bit of debate what this was and a friend come up with that it was an early gas conversion kit.he had a kit very similar


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## smiler (Jul 12, 2017)

I enjoyed your take on it Mikey, lovely pics, someone's had a good root around the outbuildings, Thanks


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## BikinGlynn (Jul 12, 2017)

Love the look of this place, stunning house & brilliantly photographed,
if I only I had friends like that ;-)


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## HughieD (Jul 12, 2017)

If there was a "Double Thank" button I'd be clicking it. Stunning set. Fireplaces, stained glass, tiled floors. What a place. Thank you Mikey....


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## Mearing (Jul 12, 2017)

Excellent photos.Picture 29, tower clock mechanism?
Great stuff. Thank you.


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## Sam Haltin (Jul 12, 2017)

That's a nice house I like the fireplaces, the front door, the lino and the tiles on the floor, the staircase, the axe - THE AXE? In one shot of the staircase there is no axe and then the next shot its propped up against the wall, how it got from the store room in picture 17 to the staircase? Hmmm. That garage needs a good tidy up. Spotted a very nice carpenters brace in the 2nd from last picture, I've used one many moons ago.


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## Dirus_Strictus (Jul 12, 2017)

Hugh Jorgan;344929THE AXE? In one shot of the staircase there is no axe and then the next shot its propped up against the wall said:


> Sorry to be pedantic. The axe in question, with black tape around shaft, did not move from the pantry (storeroom) to staircase, it moved between storeroom and the lefthand side of the 'Aga' style kitchen range. The axe on the staircase moved between stairs and righthand side of front door (viewed from inside hallway), Mikey's beautifully clear images allow all the individual items to be clearly identified. As to the 'brace' - it is actually an engineer's geared chest, or in some trade descriptions, breast drill. The carpenter's brace looks like a single crank bent up from a piece of steel rod, although early Georgian examples were made from Boxwood, with metal fittings holding the rotating top knob and chuck.
> 
> As to the conversion kit - It is a piece of equipment for analysing the components of a volume of liquid or gases in a liquid. Which actual gas and liquid is difficult to state as the kit was very similar for many gases/liquids, all that alters were the reagents in the three glass rod filled reaction tubes and the three vented bottles behind the tubes. There was a kit for analysing coal gas for example, but also kits for analysing the gaseous reaction products produced when mixtures of liquids were placed in the reaction bottle (lower left). If you look carefully you can see the wooden cutout glued to the top righthand corner of the case that located the glass reaction bottle during the test. The liquid under test flowed though by gravity. If you had found the lid, you would have found the instructions glued to the underside. All made redundant with the introduction of the Drager or similar hand pumps and identification tubes.
> 
> Very nice, comprehensive set of informative images as usual Mikey, I do like the nest in the old wooden junction box (penultimate image). The Alba Shaper and the Model Engineer Magazines indicate the someone living here was a Model Engineer of the old school, which ties in with the restoration of the Tower Clock mechanism. However, this must have come out of some redundant building and not a church - the mechanism would have been reclaimed if out of some old village church. It may not actually be that old - bear witness to the Wing Nuts!


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## smiler (Jul 12, 2017)

Pedantic, You DS!Never, informative though


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## Mikeymutt (Jul 13, 2017)

Thank you all for the lovely comments.and thank you for the very informative response ds..sorry guys I did move an axe.there was two of them in here..thank you for the detailed explanation on the conversion kit.a nice detailed explanation.i have passed it on to my friend who said about it..the sheds are sometimes more interesting than the house.and people tend to forget them.these ones show that this was a family with many interests and hobbies


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## Dirus_Strictus (Jul 13, 2017)

Mikey, I suppose it would have been the summer of 1953 (I was approaching 10)when the occupier of the huge Victorian semi next door died. The semi we lived in had been turned into three flats by the simple expedient of having a flat on each floor. We lived on the first floor, which had the original house bathroom on it and this was the only bathroom in the house, but each floor did have a a WC and basin. Mum and my Aunt had rented the flat whilst Dad and Uncle were on Active Service and at war's end, as I had appeared on the scene, Mum and Dad stayed and Aunt and Uncle went to stay with Grandmother for a while. My undying memories of no 4 Queen's Road, apart from the enormous gas geyser hanging over the bath, were the old coach house and stables absolutely jam packed with junk collected by former occupiers of the house/flats. The outbuildings of the attached semi were exactly the same. We stayed in the flat until 1959 and during that time Dad and the chap living on the top floor sorted out the outbuildings to make three garages and then helped the new owner of next door to do the same with his outbuildings. All sorts of stuff appeared, gas masks, Boer War relics, two old Matchless motorcycles and the remains of an old Morris car taken off the road prior to WW2. Many years later I realised that the abandoned houses will mostly contain more modern stuff, unless shut up decades ago, it's the sheds and outbuildings that will nearly always contain the thrown away 'old junk' if we are lucky - like your piece of kit. Because of my background I am really interested in the 'scientific' kit that increasingly became available in the 20's and 30's and then the 50's to gardeners, homeowners and the like.


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## Sam Haltin (Jul 13, 2017)

Thanks DS. I should have realised that you cannot have a carpenters brace in an engineering workshop. That has solved the mystery about the moving axe - there were two......


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## Yorky (Jul 22, 2017)

Great images...love the one in the kitchen & the doll sitting in the window...thanks for sharing


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## prettyvacant71 (Jul 23, 2017)

Stained glass and gorgeous tiling! I'd be there all day moving that f00kin axe about and still not be happy wiv its position and thats several revisits later


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## Potter (Jul 30, 2017)

This really is lovely, and so much cool old stuff. I love that old adding machine and vacuum cleaner. I'm wondering what that large rackmount thing is on the floor in the bathroom.


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