Not derelict Friday

A visit to the Back to Back Houses in Birmingham today with our daughter Jess following the Steven Wilson concert at Birmigham's Symphony Hall yesterday evening.

Constructed at the start of the 19th Century to house workers for the expansion of Birmingham at the start of the industrial revolution, these the the city's last surviving back to back houses.  Once upon a time there wee 50,000+ houses like this.  But by 1875 the Public Health Acts recognised the need to improve housing conditions and stopped housing like this being built.  Finally, in the early 1960s this sort of slum housing was declared unfit for habitation and by the 1970s most of what remained was being demolished.  

I can remember this area from my time at Birmingham University in the late 1970s/early 1980s.  At this stage the buildings were no longer used as housing, but the ground floors had been converted for retail use. Of course, by then the buildings had been connected to a municipal water supply, although the 3 shared toilets in the courtyard were never connected to mains drainage and relied on the "night soil men".  Not a job you would want to do! 

The National Trust acquired the court in the early noughties and have spent million on renovating them.  The room in this shot has been left largely untouched to show visitors the state that the buildings were in.

If you've never visited it is well worth a trip.  Great care has been spent on their renovation by the National Trust.  My extra shows the internal courtyard area, with the communal laundry block to the right.  The three toilets are just behind me and to my right.  Fortunately they are not in use now and don't smell like they once must have done!