Ferrymead Trust buys windows

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33601, 1 August 1974, Page 19

Ferrymead Trust buys windows

The I'enymeacl Trust has acquired windows and a door from a Linwood house which is being demolished to make way for an office building.

Photographs and other records of the house, Kent Villa, 376 Ferry Road, have been made by the Christchurch City Council in conformity with the house’s Group 3 rating on the council's list of buildings of historical vait.e. The villa was one of the city's few remaining almost intact examples of a particular style of nineteenth-cen-tury cottage: most of the others of the style have been altered considerably. This one had been made much more convenient inside with a minimum of alteration to the exterior. Unfortunately, it had too much woodrot and borer to, be considered for restora-(

(tion. A feature was the fretwork over the veranda, with the words "Kent Villa” included in it. The fretwork has been retained by the present owners, the RBL property development and' building group. • The first owner of the! I house was a blacksmith, 1 George Frederick Finch. He . bought the section in 1876,' ; .and as far as is known the house was built almost iml mediately. I Mr Finch sold it in 1911 ■ to Mrs Clara Flanagan, who disposed of it 10 years later ''(to Mrs Monica Bickerdike.

In 1923 Mrs Bickerdike sold i: to Mr Thomas Grant, a ■ boilermaker, who owned it until his death recently. On the site will be the RBI. Gi-mp- ,'tfice block Development House, which is planned to be opened by Christmas. The building will be in timber and glass with a domed "tray” roof with skylights.