Image ID: 08907

The 'Wooden Houses' on Sherwood Avenue, Newark, 1906

Courtesy of Newark Advertiser Co. Ltd

Baldertongate / Sherwood Avenue
Newark on Trent
England

Baldertongate/Sherwood Avenue junction. The picture above was published in The Newark Advertiser newspaper on 4th July 1906 (page 8) and was taken looking east from Baldertongate with the former General Hospital (now closed) just off camera to the right. Baldertongate continues across the junction, heading out of town on the far left of the picture. The road on the right of the picture is Sherwood Avenue (then known as Cherry Holt Lane, formerly Bedlam Lane) heading down to its junction with London Road. Accompanying the picture in the newspaper was the statement that the houses on the left (as far as where the children are standing) were being demolished in order to allow the widening of Baldertongate. (This work having been completed, the area of land adjacent to the improved road, was taken for the building of St Leonard's Cottage Homes). The houses to be demolished, the paper noted, were built of brick, and had three steps down into their living rooms. It is, however the other main terraces shown in the picture - far left and far right- that are of more interest. These were known locally as the Wooden Houses owing to their upper storey being constructed of wood. The Wooden Houses - description of interior The 1906 newspaper report noted that downstairs one living room had a small cupboard under the stairs which served as a coal place and pantry. Upstairs there was only one room, 15ft 9' square and 7ft high from floor to ceiling. The floors here were made of plaster which, prior to the introduction of steam powered saw mills and wood-planing machines (which could turn out cheap, regular planking), was a favoured material for domestic flooring. A note on plaster flooring Today we are familiar with plaster being used to produce a smooth finish on walls and ceilings, but probably imagine that it would be too brittle and friable to be used on load-bearing floors. The special way in which the gypsum was prepared, however, could ensure that it set virtually as hard as concrete. In the official of the British Plaster Board company a description is given of how such plaster floors were originally formed: The floors were originally produced by placing layers of wood or mixtures of wood and coal, on the ground and then covering this with rough gypsum. The wood was burned, heated through, almost baking the gypsum to form a rough kind of plaster. This was then beaten to a powder. There are records of this kind of plaster flooring dating back to at least the 17th century, with some examples in large country houses being even earlier. Locally, in the early 19th century, there are records relating the Sheppard family's gypsum works at Ratcliff-on-Soar near Nottingham where gypsum was burned (ie turned into plaster) on the banks of the River Trent, loaded into barges, and pulled down the river to Wilford where it was sold from the barge bag by bag to local residents who were constructing their own plaster floors. The thickness of the plaster used (it could be up to 4 inches thick) acted a an excellent heat insulator and it is possible that amongst the many older houses in Newark, plaster floors still remain (albeit covered by more modern materials)

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