Housing

The entrance to Whitwick Cemetery, on Church Lane.

Interviewer: What sort of house was it?

Mr Jarvis: It was a semi-detached house. In fact, it was the first type of that semi-detached house to be built in Whitwick. At that time, sort of Church Lane was the Agar Nook of the district if you want to put it like that. It was a semi-detached house with an entry down the middle and two stout wooden gates and a six foot wall dividing the yards. They were built by two builders, Alf Holt that lived at number 90, and a chap named Bill Orton, that built my dad’s house, and my dad bought, I think it were built in 1902 and my dad went there in 1911. But it was a three bedroomed house, and a very well built place, and a good brick pig sty built at the top where of course the old earth toilet was originally.

Interviewer: Did you have indoor plumbing then, when you were a child?

Mr Jarvis: No, no. I can remember the sewerage coming up Church Lane, and so what we did, the old coal house that was on the yard, we converted that into a water toilet and built another little bit of an extension for a coal house at the back. I can always remember as a lad you know, going up to this toilet, because it was a very long garden, very long garden, going up this toilet with a lamp, a candle in a lamp, going up to the toilet at night time, you know. A bit more exciting when I got a flash lamp.

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