Nearly every time we start a project – be it a knockdown and rebuild or a renovation – we come across some long-forgotten piece that gives us a small glimpse into the lives of previous occupants.

Some of these ‘treasures’ date back a hundred or more years, like the 1900 penny coin resting behind the skirting board, placed there to commemorate the year the house was built. And the ancient horseshoe for good luck under the stairs.

Other things that we’ve found include old photos dating back to the 1940s, which had slipped behind a fireplace we were removing. The edges were scorched and curled up, but we could still read the writing on the back and the Christmas greeting there.

In another property the elderly owner who lived alone had made herself a secret, locked bolthole in the loft, which we found when we started stripping out the space ready to remove the roof. It was accessed by a rickety ladder from the garage. There was a phone, and a box of private letters and other items that were clearly important to her. Given her age, it’s a wonder she could clamber up the ladder and across the attic to reach this little hideaway! And what was she hiding from, behind the locked door? If only the walls could talk!

A more unusual find involved a jar of 30-year-old homemade chutney, squirrelled away under the floorboards in a house that we were dismantling prior to demolition.

This was particularly poignant as the property had belonged to my husband’s grandparents, both long since passed away. Every year his grandmother made chutney from the beans she lovingly grew and tended in her own garden. And the label on the jar, written in his grandfather’s hand, was dated the year that she died.

The jar had stayed intact below the floor, despite the destruction going on around it, as if it was patiently sitting there waiting to be found. And the find sent shivers (nice ones!) up our spines. It was as if the departed loved ones were saying a fond final farewell – a ‘don’t forget the good times we had here’ – to their grandson…