West Door of St. Alban's Church and look out down the green grassy slopes of Conybere Street the view is very different. It would not be easy today to picture what this area of Highgate in Birmingham looked like, but 100 years ago, terraced houses, courts, back-to-back housing were built over a filled-in clay pit known locally as Vaughton's hole.
Housing was cramped, clustered, and claustrophobic, two up, two down for a family of 7.Courts and terraces led into a cul-de-sac of more courts and terraces..‚.. These were serviced by outside water closets or lavatories - approximately three lavatories to six families sited in out-houses built in the centre of each court adjacent to a communal wash house where a family's washing was laundered in public.