I was at ‘The Towers’ working for Doctor Fred Walker. He had a surgery out at the other side of the road, some distance away. As kitchen maid I didn’t get out much. The housemaid used to take the child out, so she got out more.
I had a weekend off each month and then I’d go back home. No, I don’t think there were any trams. The doctor had a pony and trap and a groom to look after it.
No, I haven’t seen Upstairs, Downstairs . . . the people next door say I ought to look at it.”
My Grandma, Jane Bell, 7 March, 1974
I’ve finally tracked down the house in Wakefield where my Grandma Bell, then Jane Bagshaw, worked as a kitchen maid, probably around the turn of the century – 1899 or 1900 – when she’d be aged 20.
Although Tower House is so striking, it’s easy to miss as you drive past as it’s slightly tucked away at the end of a row of Victorian villas on Bond Street. The property is currently being converted into flats.
I asked if I could photograph the work in progress in the entrance hall. As a kitchen maid grandma probably never used this front entrance.
The kitchen may have been literally below stairs – in the basement ground floor beneath that imposing flight of steps at the front entrance – or perhaps somewhere around the back of the building.
I would have loved to explore the house from cellar up to what were probably the servants’ rooms on the top floor. I guess there would have been back stairs for the servants.
The Walker Family must have been as impressed as I was as a child at Jane’s homely, hearty cooking skills as when she moved on to be a kitchen maid in Sheffield, they employed her younger sister, Edith, who is recorded there on the 1901 census. Edith worked as their housemaid.
The Bagshaw family were based at Ranskill, Nottinghamshire, so for Jane and Edith heading back there on their monthly weekend off would probably have involved walking down to Westgate Station and travelling on the Great Northern Railway.