Squeaky Floor

The first day we moved in, I got a nasty surprise when I walked across the drawing room floor and nearly tripped as my foot sunk a couple of inches into the carpet.  Further investigation revealed that there was something wrong with one of the floorboards which was teetering up and down like a see-saw.  There was nothing we could do about it without lifting the carpet, so we just left it in the knowledge that we would be replacing the very worn carpet in there as soon as possible.

So next week we are having the room decorated and a new carpet (we were supposed to be getting a new gas fire as well but our gas fitters have been very busy elsewhere), so I lifted the old one, hoping that the problem would not be beyond my ability to fix.  It appears just to be some nails that have worked loose – which is good news, but under the carpet were what I think are the original Victorian floorboards, and this, which can be non other than an original Victorian nail.

It is a fearsome looking object and in fact looks hand made – I would thought that by 1850s these would be machine made.