21 November
The kind archivist from Christ Church College has written back: “the reason for selling off the residential estate was, perhaps, less mercenary than I made it sound!” she says. “The purpose of the South Trust, established by the will of Robert South, was mainly to augment the incomes of our poorer clergy (Christ Church had the advowsons and/or rectories of numerous parishes across England and Wales as part of its sixteenth century endowment). The income from our estates in Kentish Town and Caversham funded this Trust. No doubt, the expense of upgrading and repairing all the properties to modern standards was not felt to be a good use of the Fund and so it was sold and some of the proceeds went to buy 800+ acres of good farmland in Lincolnshire which, I presume, generated more income for less outlay! The rules governing the administration of charitable trusts are quite strict.”
Meanwhile there have been caveats from the Italian structural engineer. I had the intention of putting in a small window next to the double doors in the rear bedroom. I can’t understand why people go for French doors in bedrooms that lead into gardens. You can’t get any air into the room without opening the door, allowing foxes to come trotting purposefully in. The intended window has been just a small part of a planning application that the local authority should have ruled on a few days ago – but didn’t. The engineer has pointed out that if we put in the window the rear wall of the house won’t be sufficiently supported…too many holes in it. His solution is yet another steel beam above the doors and the putative window. So much steel everywhere! I’m thinking that the flat will become bionic, or imagine itself so, and leap off its non-existent foundations to rampage around the community biffing people. Can’t have that.
23 November
Oh me of little faith! I said, didn’t I, that I wasn’t expecting to hear back from the senior secretary of the property company JLL, whose predecessor had been the auctioneers in charge of the sale of entire streets of houses once belonging to Christ Church College, Oxford – bought in 1955 by The Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras. Well, she rang. She had done some asking around. She gave me a name and a company whose (by now extremely elderly manager/CEO) had been either in charge or in some way connected with that auctioneer. I rang them. They were baffled. No one keeps records of auctions for longer than 7 years (or they don’t), although the friendly George said he too would ask around. Who might keep such records, I asked. Well, he said. There is Estates Gazette. It sounds like something for Have I got News For You. It’s been going since 1858 and details all manner of property deals. Of course, the British Library has it, although not all of it. I have ordered up the 1956 edition.
Meanwhile, minor spat between the builder and the Italian engineer. The builder is scoffing at the engineer’s requirement for yet another steel beam merely to support a small extra window. He drags a ladder to the back wall and waves his arms at the hapless Bartek to hand him various implements so that he can hack off the plaster above the double doors. What level of support is there already at the moment and how far does it stretch? Pah! (or its Polish equivalent). A concrete lintel will be quite enough. ‘Did the engineer cut anything off to see underneath? I am sure he didn’t!’ Well, evidently not since the surface was un-hacked before this onslaught on it. But also (though the builder is not to know this, having never set eyes on the Italian engineer), no one in matching black jacket, trousers, hair, beard and black suede shoes would climb on a ladder to hack away at anything.