HI.
From growing up in liverpool 1850's.
Dr.w.Duncan medical officer of health 1840's .states "Liverpool is the most unhealthy towm in England . Average age at death was 17 years,in 1789/90 census,6788 people were found living in 1728 cellars.
Thomas Park decated his memories to his mother,and these contain many descriptions of Liverpool in the mid 1800's.he records that he was born 1847 at 37 richardson buildings-off Park Lane, Thomas describes the area thus:
Now Park lane in those days was a very busy place,a very narrow lane having very small shops on each side of it...it was so narrow that there was only room for two carts to pass.Between Sparting st and Crosbie st was the entrance to the London and North Railway: on the north side of the gateway stood a passage or cartway,having Spink's Butchers shop on one side,andthe railway wall on the other side. Up this passage stood a row of cottages called Richardson's Buildings,andin No 37 i was born.
they were plain brick houses of ordinary type,three storeys high of no pretensions to any sort of architectural beauty,but in those days very good of their kind. The court houses were practically square,varing from 12 to 14 feet they wewe three storeys high, one room per floor (common to Liverpool),total house area would have measured app 500Sq ft, the court its self was open to the sky,10 to 12 feet wide and 50 feet in length. the houses facing each other symmetrically across this in blocks of three or four.All houses were back- to- back and also ajoined the front houses(side to back). Until 1842 the approach was through an arched tunnel as narrow as 2 feet wide and 12 feet long-the width of the front house.
In Crosbie court the tunnel was twenty feet long, the furthest houses houses in Railway court were only reached after two tunnels , and two houses were actually entered inside the last tunnel. AT the far end all but three courts on Crosbie st were terminated at the property line by the rears of privies, other court houses , or warehouses of Blundell st.
There was one prive for six houses.
I hope this gives you some help I am going to give my finger a rest!.
Regards Bangorreg
