I moved house recently to an old house (at least 1800, probably earlier) with possibly even older garden walls and coach house. I haven’t done any serious research yet, too busy redecorating things, but there’s an intriguing number scratched into my back garden wall. It ‘looks’ like it says ‘1501’ in oldey worldy style hand writing. Or it could say ‘1901’? Either way, it look like a bit of wall that’s been patched up, probably dozens of times over god know how many centuries.
At some point I’ll do some research into the style of bricks to see if that will help me date the wall, but in the meantime, what do you think? I’ve included some wider shots of the wall to give context (you can see the old coach house just to the right), the actually scratched date itself is about 6 inches wide.
FYI, I’m in Herefordshire, England, so having an old wall of 1500 or earlier would not be massively unusual. There’s a house two doors up which is at least 1300 and a bridge of about 1480 just beyond that. But I’m equally prepared to accept that it might just be Victorian!
From those pictures they look like hand-made bricks laid with lime mortar, and 18th or probably 19th century? Seems to have been laid in 3 different periods over time, so some changes or repurposing there. I’d say most of the wall is much newer than the building to its right as there isn’t much weathering. It could have once been an interior wall for an outbuilding of course.
The ‘1501’ looks to be just something scratched (actually it looks like it was dabbed) into a mortar or cement patch and could be from any time and isn’t authentic. That wall certainly isn’t that old.
The Coach House on the right is built of solid local sandstone, which does weather quite dramatically so it’s hard to know if it’s considerably older or just suffering from a softer building material. There’s several buildings around here that look the same (in terms of weathered sand stone) and they include everything from an 18th century pub to a 12th century castle.
I agree with you on the numbers likely not being an original carving from 1501 - the bricks don’t look old enough or the right shape. But maybe 1901? Perhaps when someone patched the wall? It’s an oddity whatever it is.
‘1901’ would make more sense, but it does look more like a ‘5’ in the pictures.
The Coach house is certainly older, even sandstones are stronger than bricks (anything stronger than blue lias anyway) and the corner has obviously been patched due to being knocked about - not surprising if it was a coach house! - but I can’t tell much else from those pictures, other than it’s wall has clearly been altered several times.
Whereabouts in the 4th pic (2625) is that patch - (if it is, i can’t see it) ?
What’s on the other side of the wall ?
I’m wondering why that patch is there … is it covering something (an alcove or nook/cranny) ?
Seriously, any really old residents in the neighborhood? Ask around if they have numbers. Especially if they have brick garden walls that look similar.
(The pub probably has had several landlords, so that might not be the place to ask…dang, Where’s Miss Marple when you need her?)
It’s hidden behind the leaves on the tree - I stood back to try and show scale, but the tree got in the way. It’s just above head height in the middle of the wall in that picture