Although the memorial cottages are of course all one building, they are in fact individual cottage homes.
When first constructed there were five homes plus a caretakers cottage and a large common room.
Most cottages had two bedrooms with two of them having three bedrooms.
The caretakers cottage in the middle of the block also had three bedrooms but had an office space in addition. This cottage had various uses originally, including allowing trustees from the charity to stay to ‘administer’ the cottages. On occasion, people in need stayed in this cottage. Later on it was itself converted to form a sixth memorial cottage.
Each cottage home also had a living room, a scullery with larder and a bathroom. One of the end cottages also had a larger sized kitchen.
Each of the cottages was plumbed in with hot water and had Royal Doulton tiled fireplaces. And the pine cladding in each cottage was of a different colour.
Correspondence from the Architect seems to imply that he had some fondness for his creation, referring to the memorial cottages as “these little houses”.
In addition to the homes themselves, the outside ground were laid to lawn at the front (including croquet lawns) and had plenty of space at the rear for gardens and growing food.
Who lives here?
Originally Maud Mary McAulay selected the residents who would live in the homes herself. Later on, these decisions were instead made by the Trustees of the Charity set up to manage the cottages.
The fundamental principle was that these were
Homes for the benefit of necessitous persons being inhabitants of Aylesby in the County of Lincoln and the neighbourhood thereof
Each and every person who has lived in the cottages in the nearly 100 years since they were built has benefited from that initial decision by the McAulay family in 1920.
Go to an overview of everything about the building
Learn how the cottages were commissioned and built
Explore the architectural details and read about the Grade 2 listing
Find out how the cottages have changed and evolved
View a gallery of images