MireyStock crossroads, Gloucestershire.

Keith Allford was a former resident of the house and provided the following information:

The photographs of Pike House were taken on the afternoon of Tuesday 11th August 1970. It was demolished in early January 1971 and reduced to rubble by mid January 1971. This information was written on the back of one of the photographs. The house was demolished to make way for a slip road at the back of the house to take the traffic across to Brierley, obviously the plans never materialised!!

The house was made bigger in 1906. Previously it had been a bungalow. The tall chimney was built after 1948 when Keith left the property. He said there was a "copper" (wash boiler) that smoked badly into the room, so possibly the chimney was made higher to try and eliminate the down draft. He said there was a fire place in the kitchen and front room and one in each of the three bedrooms.
Water had to be fetched from a trough where the horses used to drink just above Waterloo Colliery until 1947 when mains water was put in, obviously without mains water there was no flush toilet or bathroom. The good old days !!!

Thanks also to Margaret Wilce for researching the above information.

Notes:
You can see a similar wash-house complete with "copper" and "dolly tub" at the Dean Heritage Centre, Soudley.
The bungalow mentioned above was almost certainly the Pike House - these were all single storey buildings and controlled accesss to the roads via gates, and provided revenue for road upkeep via tolls.

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