A couple made a charming discovery inside their fireplace after finding a previous owner had left a note detailing how much he bought the house for over 50 years ago.
Kathryn Stutely, 50, and her partner Neil found the note in their home in Wiltshire they bought for £292,000 in 2019 as they were clearing out the old fireplace while renovating the home.
They had initially started working on their living room fireplace idea to see if they could install a log burner in the space.
Discovered during fireplace renovation
The couple said they found the note while they were removing a fireplace surround.
Kathryn said: "When we moved in there was a not very pretty fireplace where someone had clearly once had a gas fire or something. It was empty, so we decided to do something with it – maybe to put a wood burner or something in there.
"We took the surround off initially and then realised that we needed to actually dig out the fireplace a bit more. So a few days later we started taking the actual bricks out.
"Amongst all the rubble though there was a weird bit of paper that had been folded up many, many times into basically a small cube. I couldn't read it at first because I didn't have my glasses on, but when I unfolded it I noticed there was clearly something written on it.
"I gave it to my other half to read, and he read it out loud. That's when we realised what it was. I was glad I'd bothered to unfold it – otherwise, I'd have just thrown it away like the rest of the rubble."
Note reveals how much the home was bought for
The note showed how much house prices have risen over the years as the recently bought £292,000 home was claimed to be bought by the previous owner on just a £3,000 mortgage.
The note in the fireplace said: "To who may be interested. This fireplace was bricked up by me on September 1971. I have just bought this house on mortgage for £3,000 with a deposit of £300 and repayments of £5.50 per week + £80 solicitors fees.
"My wage at present is 65p per hour and I go to a Sunday market to make a few [indistinct] aged 37 years. Hope you find this interesting C.Pearce".
The couple discovered the previous owner was Eugene Pearce who passed away in 2000, aged 66, but the couple did get in touch with Eugene's granddaughter to let her know they found the letter.
Couple have also been leaving their own notes
You might think finding a note whilst doing a renovation is an odd discovery, but it turns out the couple were actually in the process of doing this themselves.
Kathryn revealed: "As we've been doing the house up, we've been leaving notes around too – so if anyone then takes down our stud walls they'll find our messages. So it was lovely to find that someone else had already done it."
So you never know what you might discover in your next or current home's walls.
