A father-of-two has revealed how a passion project sparked on a single Kent street unexpectedly captured attention across the world.<\/p>\n
Simon Warren set up Here Before Us after a wander down Folkestone\u2019s Old High Street got him thinking about the buildings around him.<\/p>\n
Simon Warren says his life as a photographer sparked his curiosity about the history of buildings. Pictures: Here Before Us<\/p>\n
The hobby-turned-business, born during the Covid-19 pandemic, uncovers the hidden history of homes and shops and includes research about who once lived inside and creating blue vinyl stickers to display in their windows.<\/p>\n
What started as a one-man band has since grown, with the 65-year-old having now joined forces with Folkestone historian Debby Jones and illustrator Darren Scotland.<\/p>\n
Today, the business has created around 600 stickers across the country – two even reaching as far as California in the US.<\/p>\n
Mr Warren, who has lived in Folkestone for five years, says his career as a photographer helped ignite his curiosity.<\/p>\n
The business opted to create high-quality stickers instead of metal plaques for ease<\/p>\n
\u201cI must have been to 3,000 houses all over the country and while I was in these houses, I kept thinking to myself, I wonder who lived here before,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything stopped through the pandemic and to suddenly not be working every day was a bit of a shocker – and that\u2019s when I moved to Folkestone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked through the Old High Street and, again, I thought to myself, what history does this street have, and I wondered what I could do to keep me in the town.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead of traditional metal plaques, the business produces high-quality window stickers, making them easier to install and avoiding the need for planning permission.<\/p>\n
Tenterden is now home to 30 vinyl stickers after the council commissioned research when a curious resident got in touch<\/p>\n
Researching each property can take hours, Mr Warren says, with time spent flicking through archives, books and online records.<\/p>\n
In Folkestone, he singled out two projects that left him in \u201ccomplete amazement\u201d.<\/p>\n
One was the discovery of Queen Victoria\u2019s Aide-de-Camp, Lewis Anstruther Hope, who once lived in the town and served as a personal assistant to the monarch.<\/p>\n
After the find, the homeowner chose not to display a sticker, instead content simply knowing the hidden story behind her house.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, adventurer Bear Grylls\u2019 grandfather once called Folkestone home, living in Cherry Garden Avenue.<\/p>\n
Edward Grylls spent a year in the town, previously working for Winston Churchill in a specialised unit called T-Force.<\/p>\n
Here Before Us discovered how Queen Victoria\u2019s butler previously lived in Folkestone. Picture: iStock<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s mission was to race into Germany after the Second World War to seize Nazi documents before they could be destroyed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was researching the house and went, wait a minute, look at that name, it\u2019s G-R-Y-L-L-S,\u201d Mr Warren revealed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, could it be, could it be, could it be him and yes, it was Bear Grylls\u2019 grandfather – I was super chuffed with that one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here Before Us has since explored buildings across the county, including several in Tenterden.<\/p>\n
It was there Mr Warren made the unusual discovery about a 14-year-old member of the \u201cwalnut gang\u201d, who had been sentenced to six months of hard labour in Maidstone Jail for stealing walnuts in the 1870s.<\/p>\n
The nutty heist is now part of a growing total of 30 stickers in Tenterden, after a resident spotted the stickers elsewhere and asked the council to commission them for their own area.<\/p>\n
Asked what he enjoys most about the work, Mr Warren says it is the reactions from homeowners when they learn what came before them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout a doubt, it\u2019s people going, wow, I had no idea that was hiding in my house – now we understand who was here before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also relishes the research itself, describing it as \u201creally interesting\u201d rather than stressful.<\/p>\n
In recent years, women have become a particular focus for the project, with Mr Warren keen on \u201caddressing the balance\u201d and \u201cchampioning\u201d women throughout history.<\/p>\n
Here Before Us offers its blue window vinyl stickers for \u00a395, while a \u201cdeep dive\u201d package starts from \u00a3755 and includes more extensive research and illustrations of the property.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A father-of-two has revealed how a passion project sparked on a single Kent street unexpectedly captured attention across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,2556,192,2558,191,3868,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-439315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-folkestone","tag-human-interest","tag-hythe","tag-kent","tag-tenterden","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}