Why brick up windows?
Question:Why is it in Norfolk and Suffolk with the older period cottages ,they have bricked up windows or plaques to the front ,particualy when an extention is done?apparently part of building regs.Anyone know why?
Answers:
The bricking up of windows is historically linked to the old old 'window tax' whereby the smaller the better as far as taxation was concerned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/window_tax...
A lot of modern and traditional buildings including brand new homes have 'bricked up' windows, I think it looks a litle odd, but I'm sure it is a phase that will pass.
cos norfolk and suffolk people are ugly inbreds
best keep their faces out of view of people walking past
maybe the goverment have taxed sunlight! seriously tho i think there was some sort of tax on window size or amount of windows or somthing similar
There used to be a window tax in the UK. Sounds ridiculous I know, but people's houses were taxed according to how many windows they had. I wouldn't be surprised if Gordon Brown tries to re-instate it.
The answer lies in the saying 'Day light robbery'. When candles were first invented, the king imposed a tax on windows, so that he would not loose out on the money paid for candles, which ended up in the royal treasury. So people, particularly in poorer areas, were forced to brick some of their windows to avoid the tax - but just had to buy more candles then! Hence the expression and hence the bricked up windows.
The reason is, that in the past, a tax was levied according to how many windows there were in a house. Sounds daft but it was so.
Years ago six old Penny's were charged for each
window you had in your house,thus to save money
they bricked them up.
People used to get taxed on the number of windows they had - you see it all over the country so its not specific to your part of the country. It was how rates (before council tax and poll tax our parents used to pay rates) were originally calculated. It was called window tax so people blocked up unnecessary windows to reduce the tax they paid.
back in history they had taxed everything else so they decided to tax light everyone promptly blocked all spare windows that were not needed to beat the tax, check out website below
www.tax.org.uk/showarticle.pl?...
hope this helps, I suppose we should all be gratefull that they haven't bought it back (the tax) lol
there used to be a window tax. There are old properties all over the country with bricked up windows
I had forgotten they done this. The more windows the better nowadays.. SILLY OLD TAX RULE,CRAZY
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