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| Court 6, Ann Street (later Colmore Row), 1860s. |
This is one of many of courts of back-to-back housing which existed in Birmingham, and were photographed during the Victorian period. This is court 6, Ann Street, which was just opposite the Town Hall, the roof of that building just visible near the chimney stacks to the right. The church in the background on the left is the now demolished Christ Church. At the time the image was taken, in the 1860s, the area was being prepared for demolition for the new Council House (which still stands on Victoria Square); the rubble in the foreground had previously been other housing.
A cart is seen on the right near the gas lamp, and signs on the wall hint of the businesses being run by those living in the court. Zooming into the image provides more insight into life behind Birmingham's streets, with the chickens in the court and washing on the line.
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| Close-up of court 6 behind Ann Street, 1860s. |
Back to back housing was one of the dominant answers to the urban overcrowding caused by rapid growth in many towns from the late 1700s, and Birmingham particularly took on the design. They were literally what they sound like, houses laid out back to back, so that the only entrance and windows were on the front; the houses arranged around an open court. These were sometimes built in the gardens of older housing, but new streets were also being laid out all around the outskirts of the town. Although the living conditions in such housing is generally thought of as poor, these houses could be a huge improvement to many run-down rural cottages, and Birmingham's housing was better than other cities. In 1828, John Darwall, a doctor at Birmingham's General Hospital, noted that in Birmingham
the streets are, for the most part, wide and spacious, and the courts have, generally, large yards. Unlike Liverpool and Manchester, excepting the part of the town which is occupied by the Irish, it is rare to find more than one family in one house, and I know not any situation where cellars are occupied by dwellings.**Regardless of this, housing could often be poorly built making it quickly run down, so with poor drainage, poor diet and poverty, illness was particularly quick to spread through these closely built dwellings.
NOTES
* JAL (301)
** Quoted in Chris Upton's Living Back to Back