Sheffield terraced houses

[Cyclone]

I'm interested about the cellars, should the cellar run the full length of the hosue front to back? I know that the neighbours does, but mine is only under the front room, maybe it's just been bricked up.

[muddycoffee]

I'm interested about the cellars, should the cellar run the full length of the hosue front to back? I know that the neighbours does, but mine is only under the front room, maybe it's just been bricked up.

 

Most old houses ( apart from the most expensively built ones ) I believe have just a cellar under the front. The reason for this I think is because they didn't have skips to take away rubble in 1900. So they filled the back cellar cavity up with building rubble before they put the floorboards in.

 

I know of many people who have dug these cellar voids out to give more storage room, but it would be a good idea to have a survey done first as they didn't have the same understanding of underpinning and foundations as today's builders have and I have been told of slippage because the weight of this stuff helps with the stability of this part of the house.

but mine is only under the front room, maybe it's just been bricked up.

Unlikely, my guess is either, the rubble and waste from the building of both houses was dumped in your back cellar void, so the other house could be sold for more with extra storage space in the cellar.

Or someone who lived in the house subsequently has dug it out.

[Plain Talker]

What I cannot fathom out is this: It is a 3 bedroomed passage house, the small 3rd bedroom is over the passage at the front. But the bathroom is over the passage at the back, but doesnt seem large enough to be a fourth bedroom. Could this have been joined on to one of the other rooms at some point? A long narrow boxroom seems a little strange, but who knows? If you can envisage the top of the stairs, at the top step there is a yard square "semi landing" which steps up to the back bedroom on the right, the bathroom on the left and the true landing straight ahead which leads to the front two bedrooms. It is unlike the terraces my grandparents lived in, in this respect. The configuration of the stairs is rather strange, but looks original due to the age of the wood/floorboards.

 

Has anyone else got one like this? BTW there is no attic and it is not baywindowed.

 

the box-room-y thing could be what used to be called a "gentleman's dressing room", my aunt had hers converted into a bedroom for my cousin, which was just about big enough for a cot-bed and a dressing table.

 

I don't know of many of the smaller "two-up-two-down-style" terraced houses that don't have that funny half-landing thing at the top of the stairs.

 

PT

[parcher]

I lived on Owler Lane. Mine was the second of the six in the yard and was built in 1895. I had a front room, with a cellar underneath it, still with its cold slab and the chute for coal. There were signs of bricked up entrances into the adjacent cellars, which I believe dated back to the second world war, so ours must have been the specially strengthened cellar. In the front room, I still had the original picture rail and thingy round the light fitting, and unbelievably the remains of the gas mantle! There was a fireplace in there but I didn't have a piano to try in the space! In the kitchen, there were was a chimney breast, with a large built in cupboard to one side. The range apparently was by the chimney breast and there were still signs of where the old boiler had been on the other side. I still had the original stone flags (which looked suspiciously like the ones used for pavements!). Upstairs, I had a front bedroom and what had originally been one back bedroom but had been split to make a bathroom and a smaller bedroom. The attic room spanned the majority of the upper floor and had a narrow twisting staircase up to it, with a door at the foot. I did not have a dormer; there was an ordinary window in the roof. Outside, there was a bank of six outdoor loos.

 

I will have to have a look at the census and see how many lived in ours!

[Yellowrose]

the box-room-y thing could be what used to be called a "gentleman's dressing room", my aunt had hers converted into a bedroom for my cousin, which was just about big enough for a cot-bed and a dressing table.

 

I don't know of many of the smaller "two-up-two-down-style" terraced houses that don't have that funny half-landing thing at the top of the stairs.

 

PT

 

Gentleman's dressing room might be pushing it a bit for a house this size, but I know nothing about it. I suppose I interpret 'Gentleman' as being middle/upper class and I would envisage these houses belonging, originally, to skilled workers at the best. This is a pit village and the houses in the road behind were for colliery workers, but I dont think these were. Its difficult to say really.

 

Its more like a corridor really than a room (our current bathroom) which widens slightly at the far end. I wonder if it originally led to the back bedroom via what is now the storage closet? I could do with seeing one or two more houses like this, and any variations in the layout might give me a clue. The stairs run from back to the middle of the house, whereas our neighbours in the 2 bedroomed run up the middle I think. These old houses are really a puzzle!

[Hopman]

Lisa,

Try asking in the Local Studies Library for old maps which show the shape of the houses. It may be that the off shot was a later addition to the house.

[muddycoffee]

Lisa,

Try asking in the Local Studies Library for old maps which show the shape of the houses. It may be that the off shot was a later addition to the house.

In my opinion it is a common misconception that offshot kitchens and bathrooms were extensions. They are almost always built like that originally.

I think you will find that a typical terrace will vary from the simpler houses at the bottom of the row to the slightly more deluxe, sometimes larger ones at the top of the row. You often see offshot kitchens at the end and not in the middle, because often a factory would have a terrace built for it's workers and the managers would live at the end or the top, in the slightly better house.

 

A friend of mine lived with his family at the top house of a long terraced road in hillsborough and it was built to a large and luxurious standard originally. It had what appeared to be an original inside bathroom from a century old house! and 5 huge bedrooms with servants bells on the fireplaces, and a large hallway with an attractive staircase. The houses lower down were smaller and less opulant.

[inessex]

My Granny live in Foress Road Crookes from the house being built c1907 to being re-housed for her health in the late 1970s. aged 95 It had changed very little

It was a terrace of four houses. Most of the residents were the same for 60-70 years. Still referred to each other as Mr. Mrs.

The 2 outer houses had a small one storey kitchen At the end of each kitchen were 2 toilets. one for that house and one for one of the middle houses.

My Gran had the house with the room over the Gennel.

A living, back room as described by others. Pot sink on the right of the Yorshire range. The oven for the range was gas fired. To the left was the high cupboard and the stairs to the half cellar. No form of water heating

Front room with conventional fireplace, front door and bay window.

Stairs in the middle. Landing with stairs over the gennel leading to the attic. Large front bedroom, because it went over the gennel. Walk in cupboard under the attic stairs. The second bedroom I would think in modern times could have been split in two to make a bathroom with a door from the bottom of the attic stairs. This was not the case in grannies day. Both bedrooms had a fireplace. Large attic with window.

[muddycoffee]

, with a cellar underneath it, still with its cold slab and the chute for coal. There were signs of bricked up entrances into the adjacent cellars, which I believe dated back to the second world war, so ours must have been the specially strengthened cellar. In the front room,

 

The home guard in the war knocked through between adjacent cellars in the war so that people could escape to the next house if theirs was damaged. It was nothing to do with extra strengthening.

I have lived in, and visited the cellars of, many terraced houses in sheffield with the bricked up escape holes. Mine doesn't because there is no adjacent cellar, but it's my impression that most in this city were knocked through.

[Falls]

Nobody has mentioned the back-to-back terraced housing yet. Many of the houses in Sheffield (too many) were like this.

 

They were terrible. Mercifully, I didn't have to live in one but I really felt sorry for people who did. The regular two up and two down terrace houses must have felt like luxury to someone coming from a back-to-back.

 

Then again, there was the houses in The Crofts which were even worse than the back to backs. The Crofts were the first to be cleaned out when the corporation started redevelopment/building in the 1920s. Odd examples of Croft-type housing was still around in to the 1950s.

 

Incidentally, is there any back-to-back housing left in Sheffield? I hope not.