I love the smell of damp bricks in the morning ...

Forgive the title but I was inspired to come up with something a little different after recently receiving an update from a well-respected property voice who addressed recipients of his monthly email note with "Hello Gorgeous"!

So, the link .. bear with me .. no, in answer to a reader's question, we are not Australian. Tascott is taken from the name of my grandfather's firm, T. A. Scott & Co, and not from the town of that name in Australia.

Thomas Amos Scott (pictured) started in the property and auctioneering business in 1915 at the age of 14.

Working his way up the industry ladder he become a partner in H. V. Thicket, a prominent firm of valuers who specialised in the valuation of industrial factories, warehouses, plant & machinery, and operated from Cathedral Yard, Manchester, .

In the early 1900s Cathedral Yard was a soot blackened collection of commercial buildings in heart of Manchester's medieval core.

The adjacent Manchester Cathedral started life as a parish church in 1215, elevated to collegiate church in 1421 and granted cathedral status in 1847. This area contains some of the oldest surviving medieval buildings in the english speaking world.

Probably fed up of the air, Thomas retreated to the country in 1935 to establish his own firm in his home town of Chorley, Lancashire. He became a prominent businessman: chairman of the district building society, Lancashire county councillor, treasurer for the county's Conservative Party, and chairman of the Licensed Victuallers Association.

After Thomas's death in 1955 my father and my great uncle continued in the business for some time. Many early memories of visiting old buildings, railway arches, public houses and dusty storerooms full of antiques and machinery of one sort or another persist, as does a fondness for the smell of damp bricks ...

By Toby Scott | Founder Tascott

June 2026