The Birmingham Back to Backs

In the late Georgian era, Britains urban population began to grow

rapidly as economy focused on industry. To house workers near their

workshops and factories, a new low-cost, high-density housing, called the

back-to-backs, was developed.

Back to back houses were only one room deep and two or three

storeys tall with a single entrance either from the street or from an inner

yard.

Back-to-back houses were notoriously unhealthy. In 1875, the Public

Health Act prohibited building them any more. By the 1970s, most towns

and cities had few or no back-to-back houses, except Leeds and Bradford.

In Birmingham, the last back-to-back courtyard was saved from

demolition and turned into a museum.