Cloudy - drizzle in the afternoon - then cloudy again
Glasgow
The Tenement House
We walked down Ingram Street to the Royal Exchange with Duke of Wellington suitable "crowned".
... and left into Queen Street to get to Argyle Street to find the Hertz office under "The Highlandman's Umbrella - or Central Station overbridge:-
Once we explained our issue with the car - a dashboard notification about tyre pressure - we carried on up Argyle Street towards The Tenement House
Originally, very few tenements had internal sanitation or plumbing. A privy in the back court and hand pump for water in the street would have supplied hundreds of dwellers.
Housing ranged from:
1. very small, single-room flats - "a single end" with no toilet or washing facilities. They shared common ablutions with other residents. Most of the people who lived in the Gorbals survived in these.
2. to a two room flat with a kitchen and a bedroom
3. to a four room middle class flat like this one which was relatively comfortable. It had: a kitchen, a bedroom, a parlour and a bathroom with a toilet. No electrcity, just gas lit by "Leerie" every evening.
The stairs up to the first floor;
At the top of the stairs was a plaque informing you about Mrs. Towards business:
The door to the flat. You had to ring the bell to get in:
It entered into a lobby with a beautiful old grandfather clock, a lovely old dresser, and a painting of her Grandfather. From here you get to the kitchen:
... a coal bunker:
a wash tub:
To a parlour, seldom used
... a handsome fireplace:
... with a piano:
To a bedroom with a recess bed:
... and her sewing machine by the window for the light:
... and last a bathroom:
... with a toilet:
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ReplyDeleteMrs Toward and her daughter were reasonably well off compared to other tenement dwelling families. They owned their flat which they'd inherited from the late Mr Toward. They probably slept in the recess bed in the kitchen for warmth and to free up the bedroom for paying guests. A lot of the "better" items of furniture had been inherited from Mrs Toward's late father, but only after his 3 unmarried daughters had been settled as they wouldn't have been expected to earn their own livings.
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