Where is New Court Gravesend?

[meljade]

Hi,

I have an ancestor listed on the 1851 census as living in New court Gravesend.  I haven't been able to find much information about the location of this address except..... from newspaper articles that it is at the north end of Red Lion Passage, West St, Gravesend.  I have found West St on google maps, but nothing else when searching.  I get the impression it wasn't an overly nice area to live.  Can anyone shed some light on the location?

Thanks Mel

[Ruskie]

Hi Mel,

One way of narrowing down the location is to look at the enumerator's walk (first page of the census) which gives a description of the area and streets covered. You can also go through the census pages one by one, making note of addresses before and after your ancestor's address. You often come across a street or landmark that you can look up on a map.

If you would like some help, if you tell us the names and census details we might be able to narrow the location down.

Generally "courts" are a bit like a courtyard - accomodation for the poorer classes, shared facilities etc. If you look at the occupations of those living there you might be able to make a judgement.

Here is a map of West Street - (if the location you found is correct) and you can see many buildings facing the high street have passages leading to "courts" behind them. One of the ones on this particular map are named, but it  just gives an idea of what New Court might have been like.

[meljade]

Thanks.  The street immediately listed on the census after New Court is Princes St and immediately before is new court is West st. There are a couple of cottages listed in between New Court and West st (? Planes and Ditchburn's).  The area covered (from my understanding of reading) is... to the west of high street, to the south of west street as far as new court, to the north of west st as far as western side of bank??, the east and west of new court, the east of princes st and the north side of New Road from Princes St to High St.

[Ruskie]

Sorry I forgot to post a lnk to the map in my earlier post:

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=17&lat=51.4445&lon=0.3681&layers=171&right=BingHyb

And

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=18&lat=51.4444&lon=0.3688&layers=176&right=BingHyb

You can also see Princes St and High St.

In the area between High St, West St and Princes St are lots of alleys and courts, so it is likely to be one of those.

[meljade]

This is fabulous, i didn't know this side by side map even existed. 

[Ruskie]

This is fabulous, i didn't know this side by side map even existed.

They are a wonderful resource. You can zoom in and scroll around, and even trace the outlines of buildings and roads and see where they are, or once were, on the second map. Great fun! I note that the whole area you are looking at seems to be car park or newer buildings.

Top left corner, you can change the map series - some show more detail than others. 

There maybe more detailed maps naming the courts and alleys, on old maps.co.uk, but now that is is a subscription site I don't use it much.