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.