The House that Tony built
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The House that Tony built
Barwicker No. 71
September 2003
Tony Shinn was born 86 years ago and lived and worked all his life
in Barwick. He died on 1 June, 2003, his funeral service was held on
13 June and he was buried in the churchyard he knew so well. The
contribution he made to the life of the village was immense. As an
enthusiastic member of Barwick-in-Elmet Historical Society he gave
talks, wrote many articles for 'The Barwicker' and was a great source of
information and encouragement.
When he was a boy he lived in a Barwick that was very different
from what it is now (see 'The Barwicker' No. 30). He attended the
village school and afterwards worked for many years at Pu1lans, the
wheelwrights and woodworkers on Potterton Lane (see Barwicker Nos. 32, 36, 38
and 40). During World War 2, he was a sergeant in the Home Guard
(see 'The Maypole stayed up'). He was an enthusiastic supporter of the
Barwick maypole as committee secretary, procession marshal, expert
splicer and authority on the climbing, raising and lowering the pole (see
Nos. 5, 41 and 53). In 1992, the Barwick earthworks were declared to
be a national monument and English Heritage, which has responsibility
for the site, asked Tony to be their local representative, a position he
filled with pride (see No. 44). In his later years especially, he carried
out a number of practical tasks in the parish church and the churchyard.
In late 2001, at the home of Connie Robson, and encouraged by
Barbara Duckett, Hugh Hawkins and Clarissa James, Tony recorded
this story of the building of his bungalow. His words have been
transcribed for these pages by Barbara. He told us that this was the
story he wanted to tell to the people of Barwick and we are pleased and
honoured to publish it here.
"I had met Win and started courting but was determined that I wouldn't pay
rent for years to somebody else and would have my own house when we
married.
Then I kept thinking of this place where I am now (12 Main St. Barwick)
The thing was, when I was young, my family lived here. We didn't own the
property and were just tenants but I knew the place and have always had a
soft spot for it and my thoughts now were what I could do with it if I had it.
The area had become a mess - a jumble of derelict, fallen, tumbledown
buildings, two houses at the front which were condemned and empty and two
at right angles in the yard at the back. It occurred to me 'Why should I be
thinking in this way? The people who own this site don't know I'm interested
in buying it and I should go and see them.' I knew there were owners at Stanks
and so, one winter's night, 1 got my bike out and cycled to where they
lived and asked them if they'd like to sell that place at Barwick and the lady
said, 'Nobody has even asked if we'd like to sell it but we are a syndicate of
four people and we're all getting on in years.' She would mention it, she said,
to the other interested people and see if they were also of the same frame of
mind that they'd all got past it.
A couple of weeks passed and I got a letter from the agent of these people
and he said he understood I was interested in the property at Barwick and
could we have a meeting. I asked Mr Pullan if 1 could have a Saturday
morning off and 1 saw this agent and he was exceedingly nice and very, very
helpful. I made an offer and it was not enough and they gave me a price
they'd accept and it wasn't much more than I'd offered and all they wanted
more was £150. I thought, 'Don't go and make a mess of it. You've a chance
to own that place.', as I went home to consider. Then 1 rang the agent and
went to his place in Leeds on a Saturday morning. When 1 got there he'd got
the papers set out on a table and he more or less said 'Put your name on it!'. I
said, 'I haven't yet said I'm going to have it.', but he said, 'You're going to
have it, I can tell - and I'll tell you something else - you'll be an idiot if you
don't!'.
1 took over the little cottage in the yard and it was empty and a lovely little
cottage - one up and one down and it faced south, beautifully dry and under a
clearance order. 1 said to Win, 'We need to live in this place until I get things
done.' I told her parents and her mother came out to see it and she was
delighted. Her parents saw the potential of the place though it wasn't nice at
the time. We got married in September 1947 and before we moved in I
concreted the floors and put it to rights.
We more or less squatted there as we did not get approval from the
authorities and the reason for that was that the other properties around were in
the same boat of condemnation. H I'd got official approval for mine it would
have opened up the flood gates for others. So 1 took the bull by the horns and
we went to live there. 1 must say we had many happy hours in that small,
comfortable, warm house being frequently visited by Win's brother Ron and
his wife Clarissa and it was spoken of very warmly in the five years or so
when the bungalow was being built.
When Win and 1 were installed in the little cottage then 1 was ready to
think about the bungalow I wanted to build. 1 drew a plan myself and then 1
got an architect, name of Castelow (and he was a well-known architect). I
took my drawing to him and and asked him if he would do some plans for
submission to the local authority, which was at Tadcaster at that time. 1 had
already approached Tadcaster Rural District Council and had some trouble
with them because I wanted to build the house on my own and they were
reluctant to agree. But then Mr Fieldhouse of the Parish Council (who I could
talk to freely) was very helpful to me and he did the liaison between Tadcaster
and myself. We made progress from there and he virtually got the plans
passed at Tadcaster and I was very grateful because you need a bit of help at a
time like that. So we overcame the first obstacle and then I submitted the
drawing plans. At that time and in view of what happened before I was pretty
much assured that they would be approved and they were.
The site was derelict and needed development; I came upon it at the right
time and I did precisely that! The bungalow was built in spare time between
Easter 1948 and 1953; nights, weekends and holidays were spent on it and I
had to earn a living in the meantime. They knew at Tadcaster that I was going
to build a bungalow in my spare time and they knew I worked at Pullans.
There was a local bloke and he used to call at Pullans many a time to see what
was going on and to keep me up to date and he was very helpful.
There was some good stonework in the cottages on the site and so when I
built the bungalow, the frontage on Main Street was pulled down and I piled
the stone up and dressed what needed cleaning. The main building was built
of salvaged stone and it was excellent stone. There was enough from the
cottages to do the job and there was some to spare.
I was told that I would need a
licence for timber and that would
be a problem but I thought, 'I'm
working for Pullans and if I can't
get some timber I might as well
pack up!'. I managed without a
timber licence because George
Pull an was very good. At that
time you could get a certain
amount of timber each month
without a licence and George
Pullan said to me, 'What you
want to do is to get your name
down on this sheet of paper.' and
he added up the amount I could
take as we went along and it was
always new timber. I was in the
right job at the right time and
could have built two bungalows
with the wood available.
The inspector came to check the footings. He looked up the trenches and
saw them dug out ready for testing. 'Oh, Good Lord,' he said, 'I don't want to
waste my time looking at these; get them filled in!' They were a tidy job and
no problem. Inspectors from the local authority were pretty reasonable with
me and when they saw that I was capable of doing it. they left me alone. As
they realised that things were going on professionally they never bothered.
It was no simple job doing the drains. It entailed digging the drainage into
different outlets and they all came to a meeting point at the bottom of the site
and then I dug a man-hole. From there it went straight into the lane that runs
at my side. The building inspector came and looked. He was a new man who
had just started for Tadcaster and he told me he wouldn't insult me when he
saw the drains all laid in the trench and collared up with cement. "Get them
filled in!" he said. like the footings inspector. The one who had been coming
before was a surly sort of fellow and we were at loggerheads for some time
but with the new one we got on famously from then on and it just shows the
difference between the two inspectors.
I was looking in the paper one night when I was getting round to the roof
and there was a farmer at Rodley pulling a factory down and there were some
grey roofing tiles that were advertised at £2 a ton. So my brother Jack took
me on a motor bike and the slates were still on the building roof. We could
have all the slates or as many as we wanted but we had to take them off.
Well. we went at night and on Saturday afternoon and we took the slates off
the single storey building. We got a firm (Longs from Crossgates) with a
motor waggon and as we took them off the roof we loaded them onto the
waggon and brought them home to Barwick. They were in excellent
condition and finding them as we did resolved the roofing problem for me. I
had some slates left; I even have some today.
By the time I was ready for the electrics I got a local fellow to do this for
me and I also got a firm to plaster it out; that was beyond me. The roofing
and the slating I did myself. I fixed a rack in the yard and I graded the slates
in rotation - 30. 29. 28. 27 - and I spent many nights in the winter putting
pegs in the slates as I graded them and then used them as I needed.
At the end of the summer there was a two week holiday and George Pullan
said. "What are you going to do in the holiday. Tony?" I said. I'm going to
get the roof on; it's essential that I get it covered in." When I got back 10 work
George Pullan said. "Now then! How did you get on with the roof.". I was
ashamed really. "
I'm a long way off." as it had taken more doing than I
expected and he said. "
I'll tell you what you can do. Come and work for a
week and then take a week off and get your roof on." That was a very
reasonable thing to do and George Pullan was very good in that way.
 |
| 'The House that Tony built 2003' |
I needed places where I could work during and after the bungalow was
built and there were the original out-buildings running alongside. They
needed re-roofing and were already fitted with pantiles and I replaced those
that needed it, but by and large they went back and for an out-building they
were plenty good enough. They gave me cover in an area that was rain-proof
and I could leave stuff if I was working on something I didn't quite finish. I
could just down tools, leave it and go and pick it up again and that's
wonderful to be able to do. Those outbuildings were a small holding
originally.
The one that you see me working in sometimes had a pair of big doors that
opened out into the lane and that originally was the coach house. They kept
coaches in it and at weekends and at holiday times when a lot of people came
to Barwick, the bloke who lived in it before me - name of Hewison - used to
get his carriage out and run them back to the trams. I put the roof right and
used them as workshops. Of course they had to be pretty high because trap-
shafts had to be reared up and they needed height for that. Most of my
woodwork was done in the one near the street. It had flagged flooring and it
was nice and dry and good and tall.
This place lacks up to now, I thought, a proper designed and built arch. So
where the old barn was that had a big wide doorway I thought 'Right! that's
the place to put the arch.' It's a proper set out arch, it is three centred with two
small arches at the corners and a big sweep across the middle. It's properly
done, though it isn't finished yet as there are some courses to go on top.
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| 'A proper set out Arch' - photo by Hugh Hawkins |
I thought I'd never be troubled by inspectors again but I had three visits -
first Tadcaster and then Leeds and they never bothered me again. One said,
'
What a lovely job you've made of it'.
The old house was pulled down in 1957. It was quite a long time before I
did the garden and only comparatively recently put it in order and it could do
with improvement but really it was the building of the house I was interested
in.
Once I was in the house I was satisfied that I'd done everything that was
possible and had no desire to alter it. It was oriented for every room to catch
the sun and I get lovely sunshine during the day. It was my design for it to be
so. It's been a happy home. I had pleasure in building it and pleasure living
in it and if I designed it and built it again I'd do just the same."
TONY SHINN
(transcribed by Barbara Duckett)
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