Birmingham Back to Backs

 For this blog post, I thought I would share a National Trust property, but a very different one from the country houses I usually show here. Those of you who followed the online beta for A Dangerous Connection may have noticed a reference to terrace houses that were "back to backs." Typically with terrace (or row houses as we'd call them in the United States), you would have a block of houses with a yard behind them. The cover for A Constant Love was actually shot in the yard of one of these houses in Bath. In wealthier terraces, that yard would be private and might be used for a garden as shown below, while in middle- or lower-class housing the yards could be shared, with everyone using the yard's amenities.

Georgian garden behind terrace house in Bath

 With back to backs, however, there are two houses – a front house facing the street and a rear house facing the yard. Beyond that is another row of rear houses, and on the other side of those would be another street-facing row. 

Plans for back to back housing in Nottingham (from Wikimedia Commons)

 This meant that you would be living in extremely close quarters with a large number of people – often full families with all of their children in their houses.

Yard of the Birmingham Back to Backs

 The rapidly gaining momentum of the Industrial Revolution in Britain during the Regency and then early Victorian period meant that more and more housing was needed for factory workers and then railway workers. Back to backs were an inexpensive solution to the housing problem, but the living conditions were often very poor and these houses eventually devolved into slums that were cleared. The National Trust saved these to preserve the history of this type of housing, making them far rarer than the country houses and landscapes that form so much of their stewardship.

 

From the outside, the houses look fairly normal. You have to prebook a guided tour to access them, and then the guide leads you through a narrow passage into the yard. This passage was the way people in the street-facing units would access the amenities of the yard.

Passageway between the street and the yard

 Those amenities included the laundry, the privies, and a water pump. With so many people using them, I have to imagine they were both very busy all of the time! And while the rear-facing houses probably had all of the smells of the yard to deal with, those front-facing houses would have made for a very long walk to use the toilet.

Another view of the yard – the privies were in the far corner

 

Interior of the laundry

 This court of back to backs was completed in 1802, and the tour takes you through multiple houses staged for various years of the house's history. Since the first "era," a Victorian home of the 1840s, is the one most relevant to my books, I'll focus on those interior photos here.

 Main room for living, eating, and cooking

 

I loved this little bench in the Inglenook fireplace

Any cooking that was done within the home would have to be done in this fireplace 

 

The master bedroom had this half-tester bed

 

  

All of the children in the family would have crammed into these two beds

 

They had a table staged with jewelry-making equipment, showing that these homes could also be a workplace

I hope you've enjoyed this look inside the Birmingham Back to Backs. As much as I enjoy the art and architecture of British country houses, I think it's even more important to visit places like this, to get a sense of how the majority of people would have lived.

 

That Time I Got to Handle Real Regency Garments

 Now that I've finished the Tremendous Machines series, I wanted to share some highlights from my last trip to England, and I'm starting with the most exciting one. I was fortunate enough to learn about the V&A East Storehouse's "Order an Object" in time to schedule an appointment before my trip. The Storehouse is located in the former Olympic park in London, and full of objects that can't fit into the jam-packed V&A Museum in South Kensington. 

 V&A East Storehouse

It's very unique for a museum, as most objects are just there to look at, without any sort of placards or other interpretation, although they do have object numbers that you can use to look them up. They're also largely just sitting out, strapped down, like this Georgian wine cooler:

Georgian-era wine cooler

 You can come in and view the objects in the main space without an appointment, but if (like me) you have a fear of heights, you may have an issue with the glass balcony railings. Thankfully, the room where you view the objects had no such triggers.

 

View an Object Room

You can choose up to five objects to look at, and a time block of one, two, or four hours for viewing. I chose two Regency-era dresses, a petticoat, and two pairs of shoes, and went with a two hour time block. I was glad I chose that long as one hour would not have been enough time with these amazing objects!

I was a little nervous about handling fabrics that were more than 200 years old, but they have you read instructions for handling and glove up before you touch them. Delightfully, you are allowed to take photos, so I was glad to have my trusty Canon point and shoot which I could handle with the gloves on. Which means I have some photos of these amazing items to show you!

First, let's look at this circa 1823 silk dress, which had a matching spencer (meaning I got two items under one object, a bonus!). One common theme of the objects I handled was that most were even lighter weight than they looked when I handled them, and that was definitely true for these items.

The silk dress

 Upper bodice of the dress

 

Lower detail of the dress  

Sleeve detail

Lower sleeve detail

 One of the great things about looking at the dress was being able to see how things fastened. The spencer had a combination of ties and hooks, and it appeared some of the hooks had been replaced with more modern ones, which made it clear that the older ones were older.

Spencer showing some of the tie ribbons

 

Lacing holes

 

More modern hooks

 

Older hooks

 

Back view of the spencer

 The second dress I viewed was a circa 1807 wedding dress. Having seen this before the promos came out for "Wuthering Heights," I had to admit I got a little fired up about how many people were saying it wasn't historically accurate that Catherine was wearing a white wedding dress. Queen Victoria's white wedding dress made it very nearly a standard for brides, but prior to her wedding, ladies generally wore their best dress. So in an era when white muslin was a tremendously popular fabric, this dress was not an anomaly. Not to say that the "Wuthering Heights" wedding dress was historically accurate, nor even a good costume (how is it possible to make a dress fit that badly on the woman who just played Barbie?), just that the colour wasn't the problem.

Back to the dress at hand, though. As you can see, this was the era of long trains and translucent muslin:

The full dress

Back of the dress

Whitework embroidery on the sleeve

Whitework embroidery on the hem

Because a wedding dress was simply a good dress, it would be worn after the wedding as well. And this dress showed clear signs of wear, with stains, a little hole, and even a place where it had been patched. These made the garment feel even more real, because I could see that it had a history that could only be imagined at this point.

A tea stain, perhaps?

Hole in the fabric

A patch

The petticoat was perhaps the least interesting of the bunch, simply because it had the fewest discoveries to make, but it was still an opportunity to get a sense of its weight (most like what it appeared, of the bunch) and see how it fastened.

Back of petticoat

A closer look at the back

Front of the petticoat

 

 Petticoat sleeve

 

Petticoat hem

 My last two objects were a pair of boots and a pair of shoes. I wanted to get a sense of what footwear was like and have two pairs to compare against each other. The boots were an outer silk lined with leather and as you can see were not the sturdiest of footwear. I think these would have been good for a place like the seaside, for a promenade along a paved surface where they wouldn't get too dirty. For as you can see, they have gotten a little dirty with wear, but not very much, considering the pale colour.

 The boots

Inside of boots showing the thin leather lining

 

View of the ties and bow on top of the second boot

 

Boot sole

 At first, I found the shoes (1810-1820) less interesting than the boots.

 

The shoes

 

 The shoes tied with this twisted fabric

 The shoes got a lot more interesting, though, when I realized that they had some arch support:

Look at that arch!

 Then I realized I was on to something, and got the second shoe out of its carrying case to discover that these shoes were very clearly made with a left and a right! I had thought that there was no such thing as left and right shoes at this time, and you were required to simply wear them into those shapes. So this one was perhaps the most astonishing find of all.

 Bottoms of shoes showing the left and right build

 As you can tell, this was an absolutely amazing experience. It's one thing to go to a museum and be able to see items like this under glass, and entirely another to get to handle them, feel the weight of them, discover their secrets, and imagine how they would have been worn. The East Storehouse is a bit out of the way of central London, but if this sounds interesting to you, I think you'll absolutely find it worth your while to get there. You can learn more about Order an Object on the V&A site. 

My study table

Tremendous Machines Part 4

 We left off the previous post in this series talking about the early railway boom and the passenger experience in those early days. To do justice to the history of British railways it would take me more than the rest of 2026 in blog posts and I have some other fun things to tell you about, so I'll just give you some highlights. If this is a topic that interests you, there are plenty of histories on YouTube and elsewhere.

As is the way with most booms, the railway bubble eventually burst, resulting in losses for many investors. A key figure in this was "Railway King" George Hudson, who was running what was essentially a pyramid scheme of railway investments.

There were major developments in technology, both in Britain and elsewhere. These improved safety as well as the passenger experience. Sleeper cars started in the 1830s with very primitive beds, evolving and eventually resulting in the Pullman carriages of the 1860s. Train carriages also introduced corridors. If you recall from my previous post, early carriages were essentially like stagecoaches on wheels, so once you got in, you were stuck in that carriage until you got out. The addition of a narrow hallway made a huge difference, making it easier to move around along the train and allowing for the introduction of dining cars and toilets.

Train carriage with corridor on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway

Trains also expanded travel to classes that had not had easy access to it before. Labourers could move to new locations, seeking jobs. Perhaps even more substantial was the boom in leisure travel. One result of this was Queen Victoria's move from the Royal Pavillion in increasingly crowded Brighton to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Although...looking at the two, it's possible architectural preference was a factor!

Royal Pavilion, Brighton

 

Osborne House, Isle of Wight

The origin of the railways was as a series of private companies given permission to build by Parliament. But in the 20th century, war, economic factors, and the rise of the automobile caused the railways to move between public and private management multiple times. Indeed, after many years of privatisation, the modern British rail network is currently moving back to public ownership under the banner of "Great British Railways" or GBR.

Public-isation of the 1960s did not go as well. The railway network consisted of mainline routes – those between major cities – and "branch" lines, which connected smaller towns and villages to the main line. The Beeching cuts (named for Dr. Richard Beeching) eliminated many of these branch lines, cutting off these smaller communities. One example is Lyme Regis, which used to be accessible by rail.

Station on the surviving Gunnislake branch line

 

Riding a train on the surviving Gunnislake branch line

I've had the opportunity to ride on some of the surviving branch lines, and they can feel like a step back in time. Gunnislake from the photos above is a great example, from Victorian-era stations to the point where the driver has to get out and take a physical token that allows him to go forward on the single-track railway.

The most famous extant branch line, though, has to be the one from Fort William to Mallaig, Scotland. It is unique in that it has both regular modern train services and also a regular steam train running on the route. The steam train is called the Jacobite, but you might know it better as the Hogwarts Express. 

The Jacobite crossing the Glenfinnan Viaduct

The Jacobite is far from the only place where you can still ride a steam locomotive in Britain, however. A remarkable thing happened with these old closed branch lines – enthusiasts began to restore them for leisure use. This combined with another major technological change: that from steam to diesel and electric. The first electric locomotive was a very early battery-operated prototype of 1837, and the technology continued to develop until the first electric-powered railway of 1881. Diesel was later, with the first locomotive in 1912, but was easier to implement without running an electricity source along the tracks. Steam locomotives were phased out on the British railway network, with the last official one running in 1968. Again, though, enthusiasts stepped in and saved many of them – some in a state where they could best be described as rust buckets rather than anything resembling a locomotive. The old branch lines became heritage railways, places where these steam locomotives and old train stock could be run on a regular basis.

Jane Austen's House Museum

I knew nothing about this in my first few trips to England. When I was researching a trip that included stops in Portsmouth and Alton (for Jane Austen's house museum in Chawton), I discovered that I could take a taxi from Portsmouth to Alresford and from there ride the Watercress Line, rather than connecting all the way back through London on the regular rail network. In the planning stages this just seemed to be a ridiculously British thing to do, to use a steam train as a legitimate leg of transportation.

I did not expect to be completely delighted by the Watercress Line, enjoying it every bit as much as I did Austen's house, which I had been longing to see for quite some time. How often is it that you discover something you love, while pursuing something else you love?

Watercress Line

Watercress Line

Ropley Station on the Watercress Line

There are probably hundreds of these heritage railways across Britain, and if I have a chance to fit one into my itinerary, I always do. It really feels like you're travelling back in time, and it impresses me that so many people are willing to put in the work to keep them all running.

North York Moors Railway

North York Moors Railway

North York Moors Railway

Isle of Wight Steam Railway 

Isle of Wight Steam Railway 

Epping-Ongar Railway 

Epping-Ongar Railway 

One of the things I love about steam railways is the smell of the coal smoke. This is not the most pleasant smell ever, but something about it has always been a weird sort of dopamine hit for me. It took me a long time to figure it out, but then I finally did:

Cedar Point and Lake Erie Railroad

My family used to go to Cedar Point every summer, and it remains one of my favourite places from childhood. What I finally remembered was that the park's railroad has operating steam locomotives, and that smell of coal smoke was a subconscious reminder of happy childhood memories. Great Britain is now my favourite place to travel, so it's almost as though the baton has been passed.  

British ridiculousness being what it is, heritage railways are not the only options to ride on a steam-hauled train. Certain old locomotives (and one new one, Tornado) are rated for "mainline steam." Which is exactly what it sounds like – they can run at up to 75 miles per hour on the regular main train lines. So yeah, imagine you're standing on a platform waiting for your normal train to take you somewhere, and then this happens:

It is completely and utterly ludicrous, and I love it.

Once I knew about this, I determined I had to do it someday, and I actually booked a trip that would travel up the scenic Settle and Carlisle line. It was cancelled, however, and so I was keeping an eye out for another opportunity.

For those of you who know British railway history, it may have surprised you that I haven't mentioned Flying Scotsman yet. For everyone else, this is unarguably the most famous British locomotive. It was built in 1923, the heyday of British railway travel, and was the first locomotive in the world to officially reach 100 miles per hour (unofficially, this is arguable). The locomotive shares the name with the nonstop route from London to Edinburgh, which required a special coal tender with a corridor inside so that drivers could be changed out, and water troughs on the tracks so it could pick up water as it went.

It's arguably the most famous locomotive in the world, having travelled to both Australia (where it set another record for the longest steam-hauled run) and the United States. It's been beloved for a very long time, although at times the funding for its survival was in question. In 2004, the National Railway Museum purchased it and began a restoration program to ensure its survival, returning to the rails off and on until 2022, when it went in for another overhaul in anticipation of its 2023 100-year anniversary. Part of that was seeing it rated again for mainline steam.

Through absolute, sheer, wonderful luck, I happened to have a trip planned to England during these events, and the Cardiff Express excursion train fell within my dates. These excursions sold out quickly, but because I was already signed up for the email newsletter, I saw it and booked immediately.

It will remain one of the most wonderful and emotional experiences of my life.

I expected the time travel feeling of boarding the train at Paddington Station in London and the excitement of being able to see the Flying Scotsman up close. I expected sitting in an old, restored train carriage and careening along at 75 miles an hour on the mainline. What I was not prepared for is the absolute love British people showed this train along the route. There were the railway enthusiasts with their tripods and cameras, but many people were just standing in fields or on overpasses, waving to the train as it went past. Even the railway workers were stopping to snap a photo on their phones.

Crowds at Cardiff 

 

Snapping a photo as the train passed

Flying Scotsman at London Paddington Station 

 Close-up of the nameplate 

I remember thinking as we were in the final hours of the journey, rolling through fields touched by the glow of golden hour, that it was a day I would remember for the rest of my life. For those of you who have read the beta of A Dangerous Connection, I channeled my memories of that day into George Darcy's emotions during the Rainhill Trials.

Flying Scotsman might be nearly a century newer than Rocket, but the emotion these tremendous machines rouse hasn't changed. Actress Fanny Kemble, building on George Stephenson's own horse analogy for Rocket, described it thus:

“She goes upon two wheels, which are her feet, and are moved by bright steel legs called pistons; these are propelled by steam, and in proportion as more steam is applied to the common extremities (the hip-joints, I suppose) of these pistons, the faster they move the wheels...the reins, bit and bridle of this wonderful beast is a small steel handle, which applies or withdraws the steam from its legs or pistons, so that a child might manage it.”

George Darcy uses the phrase "tremendous machine" to describe Rocket, and this was an intentional phrase on my part. Certainly there have been other locomotives that are more powerful, but Flying Scotsman at speed seems very much reminiscent of a thoroughbred racehorse to me. So I took a phrase used for the most famous thoroughbred race horse of all time, and applied it back to an actual machine:

"Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine!"

And with that, I will leave you with some footage of Flying Scotsman on that Cardiff trip. It is indeed a tremendous machine.