I obviously missed the announcement from Google that they were now providing indoor maps as I got such a pleasant surprise when I was searching for the birth place of a client’s ancestor. I had the house name, King Charles’ House, New Street, Worcester, Worcestershire from an obituary and from census records so I looked it up to get a photo of what it looks like now and I was able to zoom right in and then there was an arrow to click pointing in the open front door!!
This is what the outside looks like
The sign says, From this house King Charles II escaped his enemies after the Battle of Worcester September 3 1651.
The entrance
It is now a pub
It was so exciting exploring a centuries old building in England from my house in South Australia.
Incredible wood carvings on the fireplace. On Google you can zoom right in and see the detail of the carvings. I wonder if this was done by someone in the Nichols family or their employees.
This was the home of Edwin Nichols, he was born here and ran a furniture manufacturing and antiques business here which was passed down to him from his father and he passed it on to his own son Edwin Jnr. Finding out how they came to own the house is another fun challenge!
It is well worth having subscriptions to both Ancestry.com.au and Findmypast.com.au. As I said above I used an obituary and census records to find the house. Find My Past makes the British Newspaper Archive available to its subscribers which is where I found the obituary.
I hadn’t been able to find Edwin in the 1841 census on Ancestry (you can’t search by address on Ancestry) so I checked on Find My Past and only searched for Nichols, New Street, Worcester where I found a John Nichols listed. The image on Find My Past was very faded and pretty much illegible so I went back to Ancestry and searched for John Nichols and there was Edwin as well however he was recorded on the original census form as Edward. I know it is the right person because of the address, his age, and his occupation of Cabinet Maker. All this information also fits with future censuses as he remained at this address until his retirement in 1885.