Yes,
when I first started this work the housing was quite an important part
of the duties- Stamford did have a lot of slum dwellings- they had a
lot of what they called courts or yards and this- I'm not sure of the
numbers approximately- but probably getting on for two hundred houses.
These houses- the common sort of set up would be about sixteen houses
in a small area or yard- they would have say...three WC's in a block
which was for the use of the whole yard, and there would probably be
one standing pipe with a drain adjacent to it where everyone had to
go out - for their water supply, and there'd be a small sort of building
with perhaps a couple of solid fuel coppers to do the household wash-
and the houses themselves would have no drainage, no sinks- and there
would literally possibly one room with a small scullery on the ground
floor with say two bedrooms on the first floor and they may possibly,
if they were lucky, have an attic room. They were mostly over crowded
and they would only have windows in the front- and they would have no
through ventilation- so there would be a whole yard of young families
with no amenities what so ever.
The idea in the late 1930s-40s- although the war interveaned- the councils
were asked to get rid sort of this property and build council houses
on the outskirts of towns in order to re-house these occupants, and
I know Stamford had Scot Gate which was quite bad for slum properties,
Frisby's Buildings, Brittan's Court, Corporation Yard, The White's One
Yard, they were all heavily populated and Water Street, Longbrish Terrace,
Bath Row- again, which had a mixture of old buildings on the riverside-
some were slaughter houses, some were blacksmiths- some were just general
shacks, and the other side of the road were the courts- Goodges Court,
Brookes Court- all small yards with heavy numbers living there.
