Lenton Times

The Magazine of Lenton Local History Society

The Lenton Listener- Archive Articles - The Lenton Listener was a neighbourhood magazine produced between 1979-88 for Lenton Community Association 

The Pretty Pot House - now there's a name to conjure with in this age when few new houses merit a second glance. And where was this oddly named house? Well, if it were still standing, the house would be halfway between the Dunkirk flyover and University Boulevard, on the southern side of Beeston Road. When it was built in 1900 there was, however, no University Boulevard. Beeston Road simply petered out and was replaced by a footpath that ran across the Highfields Estate to Beeston.

From 'The Lenton Listener' Issue 33
March - April 1985

The Pretty Pot House Revisited

In the last issue we included an article on the Pretty Pot House, which once stood on Beeston Road in Dunkirk. Daniel Amos and his wife had built the house themselves in 1900 and thereafter Mr Amos spent much of his spare time adorning the interior and exterior of the building with pieces of tile and pottery. Florence Gooding, who is the granddaughter of Mr and Mrs Amos, heard about the article and wrote to ask if she could have a copy of the magazine. We subsequently received the following letter, which tells us much more about the house and its occupants.

Thank you for the Lenton Listener with its interesting article about my grandparents' home, 'Pretty Pot House'. You asked me to let you know of any mistakes. The article is substantially correct, except for the ending, for neither of my grandparents moved to another house in Dunkirk. My grandfather, Daniel Amos, died in 1918, the year I was born, and so I never knew him. My grandmother died in 1931 in Pretty Pot House. The authorities had wanted to pull down the house, but allowed my grandmother to end her days there. She had been previously married to Mr Bowling, and it was two of her children by her previous marriage who lived with her at Pretty Pot House. They were her son, Mr Percy Bowling, and her daughter, Florence, who married Mr William Heason, and they had two sons, Herbert Heason, whom you have contacted, and Kenneth Heason. Mrs Amos left the house in her will to her son, Percy Bowling, who with the compensation money granted when it was pulled down in 1933, bought 59 Ednaston Road, Dunkirk. Mr Bowling, Mr and Mrs Heason and their two sons were therefore the ones who had to move house when Pretty Pot House was pulled down.

I was named after my aunt, (or half-aunt) Florence, who was like a second mother to me, as I spent a lot of time in my childhood at Pretty Pot House. One or two recollections may be of interest to you. There was a big washhouse adjoining the back of the house and the doorway to it was partly surrounded by tiles but they appeared to me to be rather irregular, as if unfinished.

When I asked my mother about it, I found this was indeed so. My mother said that grandfather had intended to tile all the washhouse walls, but had died before he could complete the work. He had, however, tiled the outside of the bath which was in the wash-house, and had also beautifully decorated the entrance part to the greenhouse at the bottom of the garden, which housed a vine from which we got luscious grapes. On the wall of this greenhouse was a picture in tiles of the Chinese Bell in the Arboretum. The fireplace in the living room always fascinated me for the number of little heads, from Toby jugs etc., set into it. There was a woolly lamb from some ornament, which looked very realistic, and I always wanted to stroke it. But, of course, its woolly curls, being made of pottery, made it rather a scratchy thing to caress.

My grandfather originally came from Loddon in Norfolk, and his Norfolk background probably accounted in part, for his love of decoration, since, as you probably know, many of the Norfolk houses are decorated with flints. Grandfather did use local pebbles in his decoration. You can see them quite clearly in your photograph, set into the garden wall at the front of the house, but there were others in the wall of the house itself, used for decorative effect. The house was not, of course, 'open to the public', but my aunt Florence often showed visitors inside if they expressed an interest, and they had a number of American visitors who were fascinated by it.

My grandfather was a craftsman in other media, and I still have a workbox and some other articles he made out of wood, and a photograph of him sitting proudly on a boneshaker bicycle, which my mother told me he made himself.

FLORENCE GOODING

Since the appearance of our original article on the Pretty Pot House, we have discovered that there has been at least one other piece written about Mr Amos and his house on Beeston Road. This appeared in the Evening Post for 15th September 1933 under the headline 'Dunkirk Jeu d'Espirit To Go' (see photograph above). The Post reporter covered much the same material as we did, but also included the odd personal detail of which we were unaware. Unfortunately we don't have enough space to carry this extra information, but anyone wanting to get hold of it, can do so at the Local Studies Library in Angel Row, where a copy of the article is kept in one of the cuttings boxes at Ref. No. L.92.1.!