Jump to content

Back-to-back houses


Guest Leipzig

Recommended Posts

Guest Leipzig

When and where in Sheffield was the last back-to-back house demolished?

Back-to-back houses were once quite common in Sheffield, and large families lived in their cramped conditions.

Can anyone identify the Road/Street in the picture. As you can see the photograph was taken shortly before the houses were demolished.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When and where in Sheffield was the last back-to-back house demolished?

Back-to-back houses were once quite common in Sheffield, and large families lived in their cramped conditions.

Can anyone identify the Road/Street in the picture. As you can see the photograph was taken shortly before the houses were demolished.

That is a superb question, you've got me beat, Welcome and stuff, and Congratulations on a stinker of a question; I'll pass you onto Tsavo our resident "solver of stinker questions" ... I just post a lot, I'm not even sure where Sheffield is/was .... probably

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's relatively flat, it has a big building at one end, a Church, A Hall maybe (not recognisible).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is that a spire sticking up. on the left hand side ? above the buildings ? I which case, is it a Church ? Still none the wiser here ... :o)

Ask the bloke, walking down the RHS !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Leipzig

I can remember 1972/73, going in to look at the small, isolated block of back-to-back houses, which were located on Stewart Road (see map).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest tsavo

That is a superb question, you've got me beat, Welcome and stuff, and Congratulations on a stinker of a question; I'll pass you onto Tsavo our resident "solver of stinker questions" ... I just post a lot, I'm not even sure where Sheffield is/was .... probably

Thanks for that unwarranted praise, Richard, but will have to leave off the search for Shergar and Lord Lucan though!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first thought was to say they haven’t and they are still building them. The so called luxury apartments are no better than the back to backs with someone living each side, above, below and at the back. What a laugh.

However cynical bit over the last Back to Backs I remember were at Manor Top and further down Mansfield Road just before Woodhouse Road. It did seem strange to go into the front door and find that there was no way through to a back door.

The one I remember best had an organ in the front room, one that you had foot pedals for the air. I bet the neighbours loved it when they played that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest tsavo

Well, after four plus hours Googling, I'm still no nearer answering your question. I know the info's out there but maybe better luck tomorrow

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm allmost certain that I went in one like that in Rotherham a year or two back.

Now, I've slept since then and also taken quite a bit of red wine (To help the old war wound, you understand), but I seem to remember a row of houses in Greasborough that were true back to backs. I was told not to drill through a wall that I ewas just about to put a 1/2" hole through as the neigbour would be a bit miffed.

All of the above may just be rubbish mind but there you go.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are still several surviving examples of c18 back-to-back housing in Sheffield today. A couple are in the West Bar area.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Had to check a book. There's a row of back to backs on Snow Lane, although they aren't used today for their original purpose. They were built circa 1800 and are now a factory so don't expect a Georgian family to be still in there.

There are other examples but I can't remember where I read about them.

The ones on Snow Lane are pictured on page 164 of Pevsner Architectural guide to Sheffield, co-wrote by Ruth Harman, head honco at Sheffield Archives. It's well worth the tenner it costs (about 400 pages with lots of images).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for that unwarranted praise, Richard, but will have to leave off the search for Shergar and Lord Lucan though!

On Tuesday I took a phone call from a mate at work, couldn't even work out what day it was; even after he told me... twice : brain = mush

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When and where in Sheffield was the last back-to-back house demolished?

Back-to-back houses were once quite common in Sheffield, and large families lived in their cramped conditions.

Can anyone identify the Road/Street in the picture. As you can see the photograph was taken shortly before the houses were demolished.

I should know this, having knocked quite a few of the old properties down, but it evades me.

A possibility would be Cottingham Street, with the Radical working mens club being the building in the background,

but I can't remember three story buildings being on there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest tsavo

Thinking aloud....but it would have been after the tower blocks and the Kelvin flats etc were built so latish 80s......but only a guesstimation! (even the spell checker gave up on that one)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Leipzig

When and where in Sheffield was the last back-to-back house demolished?

Back-to-back houses were once quite common in Sheffield, and large families lived in their cramped conditions.

Can anyone identify the Road/Street in the picture. As you can see the photograph was taken shortly before the houses were demolished.

I have just read a post on another forum which reports that Sharrow Lane School is about to close at the end of July. The road crossing the end of the street in the above picture is Sharrow Lane - the school is the very faint building on the left hand side. The building on the right hand side is St Johns Methodist Church. The street in the picture is Franklin Street, the photograph having been taken from Lansdowne Road.

Leipzig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest tsavo

See also "http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/1827-sharrow-lane-school/page__view__findpost__p__8944" topic by Runningman.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest dwarfersmeg

This type of back to back house still exists. I live in one on Paterson Close in Stocksbridge! ^_^

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest dwarfersmeg

Sorry, just worked it out! :blink:

Here's a plan of part of the estate. The yellow marks are back to backs. OK, it's hardly Victorian slums but they're still back to backs. ;-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Rowlinson

A friend of mine used to live on Franklin Street. At the town end there was a barbers shop kept by a gentleman called Horace who later moved to a shop in Woodseats. ( Top of The Dale I think) Franklin Street was demolished around 1964/5 and most of the residents moved to the Norfolk Park estate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This type of back to back house still exists. I live in one on Paterson Close in Stocksbridge! ^_^

Theres lots of back to back houses in rotherham that still exist especially around ferham park. Rotherham tends to keep their old buildings unlike sheffield.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If an answer hadn't already been suggested, i would have hazarded a guess at Milton street (the houses i know are on the stretch of road that runs between Hanover Way and Headford street, but just looking on google maps now, it seems there may be more remaining going the other way, into town)

I have recently been in some 3 storey ex back-to-back houses doing landlord surveys. I say ex, because they had been knocked through to make one big absolutley MASSIVE house.

(Shame about the Students/asylum seekers/downright mucky bleeders living in them, i felt dirty just standing in some of the rooms, yuk!)

As soon as i approached to do the surveys, my 'Sheffield Historian' sensor buzzed, and went ballistic when inside. Initially i thought they had once been quite 'well-to-do' properties, with the upper rooms being servents quarters. The original winding staircases had all be blocked up.

It was after the second house i realized what they had been.

There arent many left, but they are still there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...