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HowardH

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Whilst traveling in England, one of the hotels had doors like this:

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Why would the set back be so far?  That's a good six inches away.  Very strange...
 

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My kitchen door is that way. It had a large decorative plate behind the knob. When I changed the locks I had to drill a new hole and fill the other with water putty.

Kevin
 
Since you are Stateside I'll have to say someone was trying to mimic the old style / european style backset.
They used to make and probably still do somewhere long latch throws like that. We used to install them once in a while. Can't remember for sure think its a 4-3/4" or 5-1/4" backset. My old door hole jig has a setting for it.
 
Here is a photo of mine. All of the locks were different keys when I moved in. So this was my solution to match them up. The door needs replaced, but this works for now. You can see the old plate pattern in the finish.

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Kevin
 

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On one of my early jobs with my msaon contracting, we worked on a house with the knobs in the center of the door. not every door, but on the front entrance and one room door.  when we first started, there were no doors.  about the time we were almost thru with the fireplaces, the doors were installed.  On his first tip thru carrying mortar, my helper opened the front door and smacked himself in the face with the edge of the front door. Mortar went all over the just finished (whitecoat plaster) and the recently tiled entrance floor.  Most of the tile had been covered with paper, but the bucket of "mud" managed to fly well beyond the protection. Luckily, we were able to clean up the mess quickly, before any permanent damage resulted.

i got into a big arguement with the carpenters about removing the door until the job was completed, atleast the masonry part.  When the builder showed up, he agreed with me.  He ended up in an arguement with the architect.  The doors were not replaced with more conventional knob placements. We worked on other jobs for the same architect over the next few years, but never saw the center knob placement again.
Tinker
 
Lovely wallpaper BTW, isn't it?  [blink]  That room hadn't been updated I think since Henry VIII was in residence at Hampton Court across the street from where we were staying.  $375 a night for basically a Motel 6...  [scared]
 
Back in the day all fire doors (like hotel doors) had to have 50x25 stops, so the door knobs had to pushed towards the center of the door to prevent your knuckles being skinned every time the door was closed 
 
HowardH said:
Lovely wallpaper BTW, isn't it?  [blink]  That room hadn't been updated I think since Henry VIII was in residence at Hampton Court across the street from where we were staying.  $375 a night for basically a Motel 6...   [scared]

You could have stayed outside London and just come in on the tube it would have been a lot cheaper. I seem to remember you mentioning it was paid for by your partners job or something ??? so doesn't matter I guess.

Those locks are pretty normal in central London we fit them all the time.
 
Not uncommon with older houses built before and in the 1950's. Longer backsets are still available at stores that deal with restoration hardware, not big box stores.

It is one of the ways to determine the age of a house. In older cities, the height of the front porch or below ground entrance can tell one a lot about the age of a house.
 
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You could have stayed outside London and just come in on the tube it would have been a lot cheaper. I seem to remember you mentioning it was paid for by your partners job or something ??? so doesn't matter I guess.
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during our stay in London at the hotel across from the Eye, it was company paid, thank goodness.  That room was $500 a night! [scared] [scared] [scared]  That night across from Hampton Court was on us.  We probably should have stayed somewhere out by Heathrow the night before we left and we have saved the $80 cab to the airport. 
 
Howard. Were you in the old parliament building that is now a Marriott?  I have stayed there and it is super touristy.

Did you make it to Brick Lane to get some curry and a few drinks?
 
We stayed at the Royal Horseguards and it has quite a history.  It was used by members of Parliament at one time as a housing project of sorts, albeit a very nice one.  it was also the home of the Liberal Party and MI6!  I was wondering if James Bond was going to show up.  ;D  A bomb when down the middle of the grand staircase during the war but you couldn't tell.  A tunnel was built to allow the members of parliament to travel back and forth from the Parliament building in safety.  There is also a private meeting room where the members of the party could come around, swap stories, drink whiskey, engage the services of young women and smoke cigars.  Not bad!  Of course the room was lined in marble so the cigar smoke could be cleaned off the walls.  I like this place!
 
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