Renovations at the house near Brixton where the artist lodged in 1873 have thrown up documents, watercolours and a prayer book - as a new show opens at Tate Britain

Newly discovered household documents and a battered book of prayers from the time Vincent van Gogh lived in south London are to shed new light on key months in the artist’s life.

The crumpled papers and an 1867 pamphlet of prayers and hymns were found hidden under floorboards and between attic timbers at 87 Hackford Road, the terraced house near Brixton where the artist lodged for over a year from May 1873. The cache came to light during renovation work earlier this year, according to Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey.

The documents, some now in the hands of art conservators, relate to a significant period of the Dutch artist’s emotional and spiritual life. Living in Hackford Road while he worked for an art dealer in Covent Garden, Van Gogh is thought to have fallen in love with Eugénie Loyer, the 19-year-old daughter of his landlady.

He also became devoutly Christian during this time. The religious pamphlet had been published by a company in the same street as the gallery where Van Gogh worked, so could well have been read by him or his landlady, Ursula Loyer.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fragments of paper with watercolour flowers were found under the floorboards in Van Gogh’s bedroom. Photograph: Martin Bailey

“This is an intriguing discovery about Van Gogh’s time in Brixton,” said Bailey, who has co-curated a Tate Britain exhibition, Van Gogh and Britain, which opens on 27 March. It will feature a re-creation of the facade of the Hackford Road house.

Two of the unearthed documents are insurance policies in the name of Loyer and dating from the time of Van Gogh’s stay. Valued at £100 then, number 87 was insured against fire for a premium of 3s 6d. A builder also found scraps of paper painted with watercolour flowers, perhaps by Eugénie, under the floorboards in the top-floor room where the artist slept. Alongside them was a ball of other fragile documents which have not yet been studied.

“The fact that a whole wad was under the floorboards, rather than a loose sheet or two, suggests that they were important documents which had been deliberately hidden for safekeeping,” writes Bailey in the Art Newspaper.

The house was first identified in 1971 by a curious postman. During a long postal strike Paul Chalcroft used his free time to work out which number was formerly owned by Mrs Loyer.

Former violinist Jian (James) Wang and his wife, Alice Childs, bought the three-storey house at auction in 2012 and have now almost completed renovations. They intend to turn the house into a creative base for Chinese visitors. This pleases Bailey: “It is appropriate that the house will now offer lodging to artists from China.”