119 Station Road Flitwick

119 to 121 Station Road September 2017

Today [2017] 119a Station Road is women’s hairdresser named Cream and next-door is a newsagent. The Rating and Valuation Act 1925 specified that every building and piece of land in the country was to be assessed to determine its rateable value. The valuer visiting 119 Station Road [DV1/C129/24] found that it was owned by Richard  Goodman, the miller at East End Mill, and occupied by baker Charles Cousins, whose rent was £29/10/- per annum. Before the Great War the rent had been £23 per annum.

Accommodation comprised a reception room, a scullery and the shop, which measured 12 feet 6 inches by 9 feet 6 inches. There were three bedrooms upstairs (“one over passage”). There were also “two small Bays up”. It looks as if the right-hand bay window was, at that time, over a passage way rather than, as today, above a room. A note written on 21st August 1945 (six days after World War Two finally ended) states: “Bricked up archway between shop and bakehouse”.

Outside was a brick and slate room with a five bushel oven and a loft over, where the flour was kept. The remaining outbuildings were weather-boarded with corrugated iron roofs. There was a one-stall stable and loose box with a loft over, a coal barn, a barn “used in connection with shop”, an open cart shed and an earth closet. The valuer noted: “No proper drainage”.