Back to Backs

Some of you reading this will remember that in the early 90s I worked as Head of Tourism for Birmingham City Council. It was quite a turbulent time, both in my life and the life of the Council, but I made good friends there and am proud of all I achieved. Amongst the organisations I worked with was the Birmingham Conservation Trust and so it was with great pleasure that last month, I visited the Back to Backs down in Birmingham’s China Town, now run by the National Trust but originally saved by the Conservation Trust which managed the repair and restoration of the properties.  

This now unique set of Birmingham back to back housing, set around their inner Court 15, were once typical of homes for thousands of residents, going back over 130 years. Hard to believe that the buildings around this courtyard were lived in until 1966, when they were condemned as unfit for habitation – many years too late in my opinion. As well as the cramped and oppressive little houses where families and even sometimes, their lodgers, lived and worked for generations, the courtyard also contained a shared wash-house and a shared privy and in later years, a shared water pump, the latter a luxury compared to having to carry buckets of water from across several streets away.

It was bitterly cold on the day of my visit and when I arrived back home to my own little house, I was so grateful for the speedy heating and space to myself, unimaginable for those workers and families of Court 15.