A great need in the late 19th century was for rental houses for the lowest paid workers. There also developed a need to build appropriate houses for skilled artisans and overseers. Building plots were sold to individuals, building clubs, and
building societies who would try to minimise the building and land costs. The earlier houses were built in terraces of eight to twelve houses, but as wealth, confidence, and the demand for housing grew in the 1880s and 1890s, whole streets would be built together in the form of one long terrace.
Ginnels (entries) were set in after every fourth house, according to the act. In interpreting the act, the earliest houses remained the traditional
two-storey cottage design but with taller rooms and larger windows, which improved lighting and ventilation. The ground floor contained a front living room and back dining room with the stair column running parallel to the street, in between. Cooking was possible on the dining room fire, usually a kitchen range, a coal-burning enclosed fire with side oven. Upstairs were two bedrooms. The back window had to be least 10% of the floor area, and to obtain the ventilation, the
rising sash design was ubiquitous. The houses had a long, narrow private yard (also known as an "
area"), with the privy (
outhouse) containing an
earth closet on the back wall. Many tasks such as laundry were performed in the yard, behind which was an
alley (known by
various names) to allow access for the
night soil man. Neighbours, friends, and children usually came into the house through the back door. The first houses were identical to their neighbour, but soon they became 'handed' (i.e. differentiated into right and left) as it was cheaper to build a shared
chimney stack. Where they existed, rear extensions
shared a wall, and there was less loss of light to the middle room window. An early modification to the basic design shifted the staircase to be perpendicular to the street, sometimes with the addition of a ground floor hallway. A rear adjoined
scullery would also be added, generally with a third, smaller bedroom built on top, which modern owners often converted into an upstairs bathroom. The privy began to be built adjoining the scullery block, with a
water closet connected to mains drainage. The byelaws defined the quality of building, not its design. As a result the physical construction of the houses varied dramatically; everything from the width of the street frontage to the spacing of the windows was different from terrace to terrace. Other small differences set some terraces apart from others, such as the presence of a cellar or a small 6 ft deep
front garden to separate the house from the street. Some were built with
bay windows on the ground floor (and occasionally the second level as well). Larger houses for the overseers were built in the same terraces, with additional cellars and rooms in the roof space. On terraces with an alley leading to the back gardens, either one or both houses neighbouring the passage were built over it on the first floor, forming a tunnel and providing marginally more bedroom space.
Comparative features . They have cellars. They have cast stone lintels but have lost the sash windows and the
ogee guttering. • Ventilation: it was no longer acceptable to have the ground-floor flooring laid directly on the earth. The timbers had to be at least above the earth, and on rising ground this would be more. • Walls: in areas where brick was used, walls were built using a simple
Flemish bond, meaning a single-wythe, 9-inch wall. They all had to have a damp course and foundations. The damp course could be a layer of asphalt in bricks at least below the wooden floor beams; later it would be salt-glazed bricks or slate. The act required a double course of bricks, later concrete would be placed beneath, though the quality was poor, and the requirements changed to two layers of double-wythe brick. Higher specification concrete had replaced this by 1919. • The ground floor was of simple single planks, nailed with brads into 8-by-2 in softwood joists. The joist ends were treated with bitumen and sunk half a brick deep into the walls. Later with wider spans, the joist were supported by stub walls. The floor planks later were
tongue and grooved to reduce draughts. The scullery was a wet area with a
flagstone floor slightly lower than the rest of the house. • Oversailing eaves with
ogee-shaped cast iron guttering • Elaborate street façades • Patterned salt-glazed moulded bricks, tiles, chimney pots, ridge tiles and finials • The earliest windows were set into opening topped by a low brick arch. Later these were replaced by
cast stone lintels that were balanced in the same way as the bricks. The next generation of lintels had square ends and were wider than the window opening, changing the thrust from horizontally to vertically. Cast stone was used for lintels, door and window surrounds, arch sets, bay window sets, sills and
quoins with sharp moulds and decoration. Windows lintels often displayed a false keystone. File:Canterbury 8920.JPG| 70° low brick arch File:Canterbury 8918c.JPG|Earlier 70° flat brick lintel in
Canterbury File:Strood Byelaw houses 9008c.JPG|Earlier 70° cast stone lintel on a larger house in
Strood File:Strood Byelaw houses 9023.JPG|Decorated openings in
cast stone, in style of a
Gibbs surround File:Strood Byelaw houses decorative ironwork 9016.JPG|The cast iron decoration of superior houses of 1885, that front onto the church File:Largeterracehouses.JPG|Quality construction a large terraced house in
Moss Side, Manchester
Evolution Byelaw terraced houses were built over a period of 65 years from 1850 to 1916; needless to say, the design evolved. By the 1880s most houses consisted of a front parlour, middle living room and a reasonably sized kitchen to the rear with a third bedroom above. This was reached through the second bedroom: later reversing the run of the stairs allowed a corridor to be constructed to give through access to the third bedroom. Beyond the kitchen was a
coal store and a water closet.
Adaptation , boarded up and awaiting a refit Many houses were incrementally improved. In the 1920s most were wired for electricity, and in the 1930s the deeper Belfast
sink and drainer replaced the shallower
cane glazed London sink. The improved damp-proof course arrested water ingress and with the suspended floors halted
wood rot. The overcrowding and deterioration of the
pre-regulation terraced houses caused increasing concern. Local authorities were empowered by the
Housing Act 1930 to conduct
slum clearance by
purchasing unfit properties compulsorily and demolishing them. This was a lengthy process, as they had to prove the property fell within the meaning of the act and then compensate the landlord for the value of the land. Hundreds of cottages were cleared before the program was stopped in 1939. It restarted in 1955 on a larger scale. Areas were designated for comprehensive development, and all was demolished—houses, factories, workshops, warehouses and chapels. Byelaw houses survived the slum clearance programmes of the 1960 and 1970s, and though becoming derelict because of depopulation, they provided a solid framework for
urban regeneration. Home improvement grants were used to bring the water closet indoors, to provide hot water and bathrooms. In certain inner-city areas these houses became popular again and subject to
gentrification schemes of the 21st century, such as Chimney Pot Park in
Salford. == Notes ==