• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

National Trust Back to Back houses and memories of them

mbenne
Below are two maps. One is of upper spring St c1950, which shows cavendish Terrace in red, with no 8 in blue. you can see a big hole in the terrace next to no 8. Also a map c1889 of upper ryland rd, showing court 10. Do not have access to 1950 map of area, and on 1955 map court 10 has gone, as has a large part of the rest of the street.

map c1889 showing court 10 Upper ryland road.jpgmap c1950 new spring st showing 8 Cavendish terrace.jpg
 
Pecks was most probably a derisory word, i.e. is that the best you can do, Mr Hitler? Though I am only too aware that some caused a massive amount of damage and loss of life.

Maurice :cool:
 
As I never was on a bomb peck but I presume it was some sort of play area. I also wonder if the origin of the name stems from kids digging small holes with knives. forks, sharp sticks or any suitable object that came to hand in the hope of finding something useful or worthwhile. After all that is how birds, by pecking, find seeds and worms.
 
Ye gods, you were spoiled, having Dinky cars. I guess by the time Dinky toys were made, after WW2, all the 'good things' had been found. :laughing:
My first Dinky car (that I ever had) was in about 1947. It was a green Alvis (a friend owns a real one). I had a boil on my neck and the doctor had to lance it. For being a 'good boy' and not making a fuss or noise, I got it as a reward. :)
 
Regarding bomb pecks...it was my understanding that before becoming a peck, it was a bombed building. It was called a peck after the site was cleared. I have no idea where the word peck came from...however, pecks became our place to play. We had 2 pecks on Paddington St, 1 right in front of our yard, the other one at the top of the street at Guildford St. The best and biggest peck was on Summer Lane at Ormond St. It was large and had many mounds, ideal for playing cowboys and indians.
Dave A
 
Radiorails said:
Ye gods, you were spoiled, having Dinky cars. I guess by the time Dinky toys were made, after WW2, all the 'good things' had been found. :laughing:
My first Dinky car (that I ever had) was in about 1947. It was a green Alvis (a friend owns a real one). I had a boil on my neck and the doctor had to lance it. For being a 'good boy' and not making a fuss or noise, I got it as a reward. :)
Click to expand...
I was born in the late 50's and out playing early sixties but not on the bomb sites which still existed then. Mum said it was dangerous. My first Dinkys had no glass in the windows , and then they did. Or it might have been a forerunner for plastic. But it would have as been as you say for being good or an occasion. I also remember houses with big wooden frames propping them up, one was rubble on one side, the complete house side was the witch's house. The garden fence had gone and the'witch' used to hang her washing out street side, she had a bad leg and a dog tied up that barked. We all used to run past scared. Except with Nan who crossed over, because she said it was a bad bend. No path in to the oncoming traffic. Several accidents happened there, we said it was the witch.
 
Many buildings were propped up especially around the Bull Ring and central area of the city. There are some photos on BHF.
There was an lady who was regarded as a witch in my area. Principally because she had a cycle with a basket fixed to the handlebars. In this basket was to be seen her black cat! Say No more!
Actually I got to know here a little by doing the occasional garden job for her. She was nothing like I had imagined and a very nice lady, a former nurse. I believe her health was not good as once or twice I noticed her faint when stood in queues for food.
Queuing for food is not a 21st. century phenomena! It's all been done before as older people will recall. ;)
 
From memory Corgi and Matchbox were other brands.
Being eight when the war finished I was not into toys very much. I know some names as my children had them.
I was always roaming around outdoors, whenever school holidays and weather permitted. Most evenings involved radio or books.
Times have changed; in between garden work I run my garden railway - big boys toys. :laughing:
 
i loved the old brewhouse, that was our "den", when not in use by the washing days.we would sit with a candle and tell stories
the scarier the better :)
 
I am told my old house had a brew house. It not being a back to back. My aunty's back to back didn't have one. My kitchen must have been extended to incorporate the brewhouse as it has a chimney over the kitchen. I vaguely remember my great gran's house, she had what she called the breakfast room, then there was a verandah then the kitchen then the brewhouse. Can you tell me what exactly a brewhouse was?
My partner's uncle's was a back to back. It had/has a garden on one side/front. Another house is on the back of it. He had garages on one side of the yard making an L shape and another house backed on to them. I climbed up to look through the oriel window in the garage and I was looking in to a farm yard. Before his time some windows were bricked up, tastefully. He said people got taxed on how many windows they had. So no windows in the bathroom which used to be a bedroom. Very intense housing as you can only get one car down the one way street.
 
Many old houses had kitchen chimneys which usually were for the wash tub - called a 'copper' (in Devon anyway) as that was what the bowl was usually made from. Some chimneys it seems were for cast iron fire grates which had an oven and a warmer plus a top hob.
1589475772909.png These can be seen at the Black Country Museum.
I wonder how many here have black leaded them in the past or when visiting grandparents or other older relatives were asked to help?
1589476010221.png
If you liked steam then this was the place to be. It was a whole mornings job in a way, fire had to be lit, water heated to very hot - none of the low temperatures (which don't kill many bugs) of today.
I can still see my dear mother-in-law working hard with the wash - always on Monday of course.
The more modern - at the time before electric washing machines - was a gas boiler, often with a copper bowl.
1589476371025.png
The fire grates, washing bowls and gas appliances were most likely made in Birmingham or the Black Country. I guess there is a thread about them.
 
That brings back memories, Alan. I ripped out one like picture#1 at our old house in Albert Road, Kings Heath, and found a token from the Green Man in Sand Street that had slipped down behind the mantelpiece. But the house, still there, had been built in the 1860s. The same room had wood panelling up to about 4 ft, but I didn't find any more gems when that was taken down. Everywhere had either Brunswick Greem or brown paint - was I glad to see the back of that!

Maurice :cool:
 
I worked for the local authority housing department many years ago and indeed they would supply gas boilers.

When first built, a lot of the pre war social houses had a bath but did not have a hot water system to fill it. Tenants were given a gas boiler to wash clothes and heat water for the bath. The gas boilers had a bayonet gas cock, so it could be plugged in to the gas main. The boiler was normally stored under the draining board, people would fit a curtain across to hide the boiler.

My mom kept hers in the bathroom. She would fill it with a bucket from the sink and then plug it in. To light it she switched the gas cock on, then used a lighted taper of newspaper lit from the stove. The whole contraption would go WHUMP! As the gas caught the flame. Use to scare me half the death. I’m sure I heard her hair crackle as the flame singed it.

In later years, the council started to supply electric wash boilers, but my mom was having none of that modern nonsense. The gas boiler was temperamental, but she knew it and how to work it.
 
Morturn said:
I worked for the local authority housing department many years ago and indeed they would supply gas boilers.

When first built, a lot of the pre war social houses had a bath but did not have a hot water system to fill it. Tenants were given a gas boiler to wash clothes and heat water for the bath. The gas boilers had a bayonet gas cock, so it could be plugged in to the gas main. The boiler was normally stored under the draining board, people would fit a curtain across to hide the boiler.

My mom kept hers in the bathroom. She would fill it with a bucket from the sink and then plug it in. To light it she switched the gas cock on, then used a lighted taper of newspaper lit from the stove. The whole contraption would go WHUMP! As the gas caught the flame. Use to scare me half the death. I’m sure I heard her hair crackle as the flame singed it.

In later years, the council started to supply electric wash boilers, but my mom was having none of that modern nonsense. The gas boiler was temperamental, but she knew it and how to work it.
Click to expand...
i remember that buff more han a bang mort, i put my fingers in my ears when mom lit it. the first just had a rubber pipe you pushed on a fitting. the bayonet is still in use i have one on my calor cooker 1589527258698.png1589527293482.png
 
I recall some bathrooms, with bath, had gas geysers which supplied the hot (and cold) water for the bath. In some instances it appeared that little or no ventilation was provided and certainly no exterior flue as used on gas fired boilers in today's homes.
It was a miracle that many people were not asphyxiated. Presumably the steam vapours absorbed most of the carbon monoxide gas. :eek:
 
abigailcasson said:
Hi all!

I am looking for information about the people who once resided in what is now the National Trust's Back-to-Back property at the corner of Inge Street and Hurst Street. The National Trust gives some information on the Mitchell's, the Oldfield's, and claims that a Jewish family, the Levy's, also lived there. I have looked through some of the census records and cannot seem to find any record of the Mitchell's living in Court 15, only at 24 Hurst Street and 53 Inge Street! As for the Levy's, the record shows that they lived at 28 Hurst Street, not in the NT property itself!

I am writing a project for a National Trust internship on "home beyond the four walls" and was hoping to find some evidence of community formed in the courtyards of the back-to-back homes. If anyone has any information regarding the NT property, or stories of community in any Birmingham back-to-back then I would be very grateful to hear it.

Thank you!
Click to expand...
Hello, Abigail,
I grew up in a back-to-back in Sparkbrook in the 1950s. It was down an entranceway called Winterdyne Place in Long St. At the top of the entrance was a little shop owned by Mrs Spencer. I recall she used to break chunks off a large salt block and weigh them off to sell us. She also sold cigarettes in twos or fives to my mother if money was short. Next to our back-to-back one of our neighbours, Mr Astley, kept pigeons in a wooden aviary in the tiny "garden". They were always cooing in the warm weather and were quite messy. Sometimes Mr Astley give me or my sisters a pigeon egg that hadn't hatched, which delighted us. On Sunday mornings my mother would cook a fried breakfast for my father. Out in the "garden" I'd smell the eggs, bacon, sausage and tomato in the pan and my mouth would water as me and my sisters only ever got cereals for breakfast. The Billy Cotton Bandshow would be playing on the radio.

All good wishes, Ray.
 
Morturn said:
I worked for the local authority housing department many years ago and indeed they would supply gas boilers.

When first built, a lot of the pre war social houses had a bath but did not have a hot water system to fill it. Tenants were given a gas boiler to wash clothes and heat water for the bath. The gas boilers had a bayonet gas cock, so it could be plugged in to the gas main. The boiler was normally stored under the draining board, people would fit a curtain across to hide the boiler.

My mom kept hers in the bathroom. She would fill it with a bucket from the sink and then plug it in. To light it she switched the gas cock on, then used a lighted taper of newspaper lit from the stove. The whole contraption would go WHUMP! As the gas caught the flame. Use to scare me half the death. I’m sure I heard her hair crackle as the flame singed it.

In later years, the council started to supply electric wash boilers, but my mom was having none of that modern nonsense. The gas boiler was temperamental, but she knew it and how to work it.
Click to expand...
I so remember the whump! and the bop! Mum used to shout,"the gas's gone out!" dad would groan and go up with his spills. My Nan had a boiler under the sink. Square. With the curtain, a sort of plastic and yet not plastic. Wax almost, floral. You needed to be an octopus to make it work. When I lived there I dreaded when it went out. I used to sit on the floor, prop the pilot light door open with a massive screwdriver vertically, then I had to push a button in with my knee, hold down another button and one to pump the gas. When I rented it out I had to have a new one. I had put up with it for years. And other things. Or the lack of.
My gran had a black grate like the picture but it was symetrical and not so fancy. My aunty in Selly Oak had a lovely one, with brightish green doors, my friend had one with pale green doors. For the ovens and the thing to draw it.
 
Hi,my friend lived in a back to back in Park Road Hockley,one narrow kitchen,very small living room with stairs going up to two bedrooms.I used to think it was very cramped but cosy,Mom dad two brothers and my friend. I must admit if I needed the toilet I would go home,ours was outside,but all ours.
 
“Charitable organisations also implemented their own schemes, such as COPEC (Conference on Politics, Economics and Citizenship) who established a House Improvement Society in 1925, and began with the refurbishment of 19 back-to-backs in Pope Street, in the city’s Jewellery Quarter; the houses were re-roofed, re-plastered and redecorated, and given a gas and cold water supply. A total of 355 homes were refurbished by COPEC in 19 schemes...”

(Emma Dwyer, Thesis, 2014)
 
Pedrocut said:
The scullery of a back-to-back house in Hockley, and the living room of a back-to-back house in Small Heath.

(From the above Thesis by Emma Dwyer, 2014. Pictures taken by Bill Brandt for the Bournville Trust in 1939)

View attachment 156629View attachment 156628
Click to expand...
As kids we lived for ten years in Pigott street which was opposite the hospital on Bath row. 3/21....court 5. I found a Martini Henry rifle in the loft.
 
Last edited:
For reference...

“During the 1930s the weekly rent for a back-to-back house with three rooms in the Summer Lane neighbourhood, immediately north of the city centre, was 6s per week.” (Chinn 1999, )
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top