Dutfields Yard interior photograph, 1900

[Cap'n Jack]

As you say, Natalie, some serious research needs to be employed in regard to the cobbles in the yard. Like you I can't see the owners going to all the expense of cobbling the yard only to knock the whole lot down a few years later.
As I said a few years ago I did find a report concerning the resurfacing of Berner Street, but it got lost in the Great Crash, though I'm sure George and his mates, who have so carefully researched this photo would have the date of that resurfacing work... wouldn't they?

Mac, you are almost certainly right in that the other photos in the album can justify a 1900 dating, but we do not discuss those, we discuss a photo - if my understanding is correct - that was obtained apart from the album, and then later matched to the album.

[Monty]

Anyone care to explain why the verification of the cobbles is so important?

Especially as other buildings in and around the yard match Dutfields.

As I say, smoke screens.

Monty.

[Cap'n Jack]

Well, Monty old stick, what concerns me here is that Mr Dutfield - you'll remember him of course as the owner of the Berner Street property - found himself in dire straits over the years 1897 - 1898, declared bankrupt and then suffering an ignomious defeat in the High Court of Justice over unclaimed rents and the like... so he was hardly likely to have financed a massive resurfacing project of the yard at any time before 1900. His death from financial strain and worry followed in 1899.
But it is certain that he kept his controlling interest in the Berner Street property almost up till 1900, so pray tell Monty, old stick, when the yard changed from having a few cobbles to being fully cobbled, as in George's photo?

For real researchers of the case, there is also a very protracted later case involving Dutfield, his Berner Street property, and some illegitimates. belonging to him, that appear to have been born there, from serving girls, over a decade from 1878.

[Ally]

As others have already given examples, AP, you know full well that the reports of the yard differ wildly in the source you have chosen to selectively cite. All the other reports indicate it is fully cobbled yard, with large irregular paving stones along the gutters and smaller ones down the center of the yard.

Cherry picking faulty and shortened testimony to create a non-issue is shoddy, shoddy arguing and really not going to bolster your case.

[Bailey]

Sounds like a load of old cobblers to me...

B.

[Monty]

AP old fruit,

Again, I fail to see how the dating of the cobbles holds any relevence to clarifying the location.

Especially as the surrounding buildings and rooftops match. Why arent you focusing on Krantzs office or the club itself? Instead you set your sights on a surface that is the most likely to alter over the years.

Monty

[Natalie Severn]

Surely Monty,because "everything" should tally with what is known about Dutfield"s Yard,including its surface ? So,if something in the image is distinctly inconsistent with what has been understood to be the case previously viz that the yard was only" partially cobbled" in 1888,the yard then becoming so muddy through rain on the night of the murder, that Stride"s hair was "matted with mud" from a nearby "wheel rut"-well,wheel ruts don"t actually happen in a well cobbled surface.
The photo may have been indistinct in parts but the cobbles or sets that we were able to see in the picture, were in "neat rows" and looked bright,well shaped and new.
That ,I believe,is inconsistent with what is known from various 1888 reports.Now I dont at all dispute that there may well be a good explanation for the cobbles looking like that, but surely we are entitled to ask the question ,because so far there havent been any satisfactory answers.As I said in a previous post,if the yard was re-surfaced that should be easy for researchers to find out.

[Sam Flynn]

Again, I fail to see how the dating of the cobbles holds any relevence to clarifying the location...

...indeed, and especially if the cobbles post-date the Stride murder by 13 years, which is the premise here. Not all the East End was in a perpetual state of entropic decay from 1888 onwards, and I daresay the good folk of the Berner Street Club could have saved up enough over the years for a gross of pobbles to spruce up the yard. They might even be the fossilised droppings from Diemschutz's pony, for all we know

[Natalie Severn]

...indeed, and especially if the cobbles post-date the Stride murder by 13 years, which is the premise here. Not all the East End was in a perpetual state of entropic decay from 1888 onwards, and I daresay the good folk of the Berner Street Club could have saved up enough over the years for a gross of pobbles to spruce up the yard. They might even be the fossilised droppings from Diemschutz's pony, for all we know

Sam,
I know you want to help out here and I understand.But the IWEA club moved from these premises in 1889.They had split up and moved to very different venues.One was at the back of the Sugar Loaf in Hanbury Street,another was a "secret location" [Sgt White knew the address of it].
Moreover,the surfacing of a yard such as Dutfields Yard would have cost a fortune----it could have happened,and its easy to find out by going to the Public Record Office and checking back through the owners name "Dutfield",or if he wasn"t the owner in 1888 whoever the owners were.I really doubt that the local coucil paid out for the resurfacing of Dutfields Yard.They wouldnt do so in the case of any other privately owned yard.

[Monty]

Norma

If that be the case, why arent the gates being debated?

Are you expecting the yard to be as it was in 88?

Monty

[Chris]

it could have happened,and its easy to find out by going to the Public Record Office and checking back through the owners name "Dutfield",or if he wasn"t the owner in 1888 whoever the owners were.

Maybe it's my ignorance, but I don't understand why or where there would be a record of the resurfacing of a private yard in the National Archives. I always give thanks for the fact that we've been a nation of bureaucrats for the last 900 years, but I don't think it's true to that extent.

[Natalie Severn]

If that be the case, why arent the gates being debated?

Are you expecting the yard to be as it was in 88?

Monty

No Neil,I am not, and I understand your point.I think the cobbles in the yard may have been replaced by the local council actually-maybe at the same time as the 1892 rebuilding took place.I know the council must have agreed to the altered the name of the road,when Berner Street became Henriques Street and this undoubtedly was to do with the murder in Dutfield"s Yard.

[Natalie Severn]

Maybe it's my ignorance, but I don't understand why or where there would be a record of the resurfacing of a private yard in the National Archives. I always give thanks for the fact that we've been a nation of bureaucrats for the last 900 years, but I don't think it's true to that extent.

Chris,I have mentioned before that I myself researched an 1870 alteration to a road that I lived next to,that was being widened to make way for lorries .This was in 1990.I went to The Greater London Record Office in Clerkenwell but I believe it has moved.It was extremely easy to do, so long as you have a name for the owner of a property or road.

[Chris]

Chris,I have mentioned before that I myself researched an 1870 alteration to a road that I lived next to,that was being widened to make way for lorries .This was in 1990.I went to The Greater London Record Office in Clerkenwell but I believe it has moved.It was extremely easy to do, so long as you have a name for the owner of a property or road.

If you now think the council had it done, then I can see there might be a record of it at the London Metropolitan Archives.

But in the post I was responding to you said you didn't think the council had it done. I don't think there would have been a public record of it, if it had just been a question of a private yard being resurfaced by its owner.

[Natalie Severn]

If you now think the council had it done, then I can see there might be a record of it at the London Metropolitan Archives.

But in the post I was responding to you said you didn't think the council had it done. I don't think there would have been a public record of it, if it had just been a question of a private yard being resurfaced by its owner.

I was just throwing that out for goodness sake.I dont know whether the councils of the 1880"s/90"s helped repair a yard"s surface.It was just a thought.
Then as now you would have had to have planning permission when you made alterations to properties and the alteration to the surface of Dutfield"s Yard would have required agreement.