ORIGINAL doors in Miller's court

[Christian]

Yes, the demolition photo seems to confirm that the rear extension was a later addition, as it seems to be poorly built, obstructs the original windows and the new windows are of a different style.
I’d agree that Mary’s boarded-up door was the old rear door to the garden.
An earlier owner of both no 26 and 27 called Miller paved over the garden and built the tenement ‘cottages’, and I think he had to cut back into the rear extension behind no 27 to be able to fit in the cottages and the privies down that side. They also blocked up the extension windows! What a mess!

Yes thought I was correct about being a later ramshackle extension!!! This often seems to be overlooked!! Thanks for confirming my analysis & reply Mark

[Wickerman]

...Yes, Kelly's entry door is missing from the Goad map, but so are the front doors to the shops. My issue with "Prater's door" was that Goad's shorthand for any break in any wall is to annotate it halfway along the wall in question, regardless of actual position. See also the break in Kelly's "partition wall" - the gap is halfway along, regardless of where the boarded up door actually was.

Incidentally, why is there an entrance shown from the alleyway into number 26, but no similar entrance to number 27? Surely they'd have had a side door too?

Goads is a mix of scale and symbols, here is an example portion of the key to a Goad map. You see the opening in a wall is just symbolic, no attempt at scale.



We can't say why No.27 had no entry in the passage, there is no reason why it should.

[Mark Hodgson]

Super interesting thread\post !!! When looking at the image of rear 26-27 prior to demolition June 1928 number 13 looks like a very crude extension looking at the windows above the sloping tiled roof - I read that prior to the 1850s the rear of 26 was just a gardened area?? Then all the cottages added!!! So was the door to the right of Mary’s head the original back door or a kitchen door??
sure no older Goad maps or plans exist to confirm any of these questions?? All very interesting anyhow!!

Yes, the demolition photo seems to confirm that the rear extension was a later addition, as it seems to be poorly built, obstructs the original windows and the new windows are of a different style.
I’d agree that Mary’s boarded-up door was the old rear door to the garden.
An earlier owner of both no 26 and 27 called Miller paved over the garden and built the tenement ‘cottages’, and I think he had to cut back into the rear extension behind no 27 to be able to fit in the cottages and the privies down that side. They also blocked up the extension windows! What a mess!

[Christian]

Super interesting thread\post !!! When looking at the image of rear 26-27 prior to demolition June 1928 number 13 looks like a very crude extension looking at the windows above the sloping tiled roof - I read that prior to the 1850s the rear of 26 was just a gardened area?? Then all the cottages added!!! So was the door to the right of Mary’s head the original back door or a kitchen door??
sure no older Goad maps or plans exist to confirm any of these questions?? All very interesting anyhow!!

[Mark Hodgson]

Are you talking about scale, or where specific dims. are noted?

The Key table for those maps advises that a wall with a break is simply that, no scale is implied.

Can you elaborate on the problem you see with the location of Prater's door.
You'll notice Kelly's door is not even shown.

The only dimensions I can see on Goad's map are the width of the streets. The ratio of the given width of Dorset Street (25 feet) to the length of the covered passageway into Miller's Court (26 feet 4 inches) don't match, the two measurements differ by about two feet.

Similarly, the ratio of the covered passageway to the width of the north end of Miller's Court, the measurements differ by about a foot.

Comparing the same known dimensions (from the school inspector's report of 1878) to each other on the Ordnance Survey map of 1893, the ratios are far more consistent and accurate.

My conclusion is that Goad's map is a guide, but not a scale map. Perhaps the street widths were only noted for the access of fire fighters' vehicles. The lengths of walls weren't important.


Yes, Kelly's entry door is missing from the Goad map, but so are the front doors to the shops. My issue with "Prater's door" was that Goad's shorthand for any break in any wall is to annotate it halfway along the wall in question, regardless of actual position. See also the break in Kelly's "partition wall" - the gap is halfway along, regardless of where the boarded up door actually was.

Incidentally, why is there an entrance shown from the alleyway into number 26, but no similar entrance to number 27? Surely they'd have had a side door too?

[Wickerman]

I no longer believe that the 1890 Goad Plan is accurate in terms of dimensions....

Are you talking about scale, or where specific dims. are noted?

Similarly, when the Goad Plan depicts breaks in walls for doors (like "Prater's door" off the court passageway, and the gap in the wall between the back of number 26 and Mary's room), these are just to denote there was a break somewhere in the wall with regards to fire risk, not how far along the wall they were. We know the boarded up door behind Mary's bed wasn't halfway along the wall, therefore the door off the passageway wasn't where it is shown on the map.

The Key table for those maps advises that a wall with a break is simply that, no scale is implied.

Can you elaborate on the problem you see with the location of Prater's door.
You'll notice Kelly's door is not even shown.

[Mark Hodgson]

Hi Richard.

The Goad Plan of Dorset St. provides a dimension for the width of the street at 25 feet.
This image shows two and a half squares (in pencil) across the width of the street. Each square is 10 feet on each side.



If we superimpose two of those squares (in red) over Kelly's room we see that the depth of her room was close to 10 feet, but the width was 1 1/2 of those squares, so close to 15 feet.

We have press estimates of 12' x 12', and another at 15' x 12'.
The Goads Plan seems to confirm the 15' dim, but tends to suggest the 12' estimate was closer to 10'.

I no longer believe that the 1890 Goad Plan is accurate in terms of dimensions. The line on the plan doesn't tally with the corresponding measurements made for the School Inspector's 'Wrack Report' of 1878. Most notably, when comparing the length of the covered passageway (26 feet 4 inches), to the length of the court (50 feet), the Goad Plan doesn't depict these dimensions in the correct ratio to each other.

The Goad Fire Inspector's Plan illustrates the layout of buildings and what the walls and roofs are made of, but it shouldn't be treated like an Ordnance Survey map, where each wall was accurately measured and drawn in proportion to each other.

Similarly, when the Goad Plan depicts breaks in walls for doors (like "Prater's door" off the court passageway, and the gap in the wall between the back of number 26 and Mary's room), these are just to denote there was a break somewhere in the wall with regards to fire risk, not how far along the wall they were. We know the boarded up door behind Mary's bed wasn't halfway along the wall, therefore the door off the passageway wasn't where it is shown on the map.

[Wickerman]

Hi Richard.

The Goad Plan of Dorset St. provides a dimension for the width of the street at 25 feet.
This image shows two and a half squares (in pencil) across the width of the street. Each square is 10 feet on each side.



If we superimpose two of those squares (in red) over Kelly's room we see that the depth of her room was close to 10 feet, but the width was 1 1/2 of those squares, so close to 15 feet.

We have press estimates of 12' x 12', and another at 15' x 12'.
The Goads Plan seems to confirm the 15' dim, but tends to suggest the 12' estimate was closer to 10'.

[richardh]

On the plan (below) we are told that #11/#12 is 12ft x 12.2ft




On Goad's, we can see #12 (marked red) and we can see #13 (marked green) as being longer than #12.





From this, can we say that #13 was at least 15ft from door to chimney wall?

I'm trying to get some detailed and accurate measurements of #13 and an experiment i did yesterday has thrown up some odd anomalies that I'm trying to figure out. For instance, it would seem that the BIG window of #13 is not central to the wall it's built into. The BIG window of #19 (above) is a mismatch and looks to be wider than the big window of #13. Also, the big window looks to be bigger than i thought in height - I thought it was about 5th high (sill to brick window arc) but now i make it to be 6ft). Also, this would mean that the ceiling height of #13 might have been closer to 10 ft high! - surely too high for a ceiling?
This would make the small window height and the door to #13 to be 7ft high - again surely too high for the door?

advice, please.

[jerryd]

Jerry,
this is how #11 & #12 might have been laid out:

Thanks Richard,

I think you are right on. Thanks very much. Your work is very good. Keep it up!

[richardh]

Jerry,
this is how #11 & #12 might have been laid out:
(YouTube)
https://youtu.be/qlqov49u_dM?t=11m13s

Sort of off topic from #26 Dorset Street but still on the topic of doors in Miller's Court, I found this sketch I believe by PC Harry Woodley of H Division during the Kitty Roman/Ronan murder in 1909 in this blog http://www.babiafi.co.uk/2015/09/mid...oor-kitty.html. I noticed stairs at the back of the room which appear to lead up to #12 from #11. Does anyone know where the door at the bottom of the stairs would be? Or did the people living in the top apartments in all the court buildings pass through the neighbor below somehow? I can't quite figure out how they got to and from the top floor?

[DJA]

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiq9NHIysXZAhUHkpQKHSd3BfQQjRx6BAgAEAY&url=%2Furl%3Fsa%3Di%26rct%3Dj%26q%3D%26esrc%3Ds%26source%3Dimages%26cd%3D%26ved%3D2ahUKEwiq9NHIysXZAhUHkpQKHSd3BfQQjRx6BAgAEAY%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fgfycat.com%252Fgifs%252Fdetail%252FOrganicElegantBlackrussianterrier%26psig%3DAOvVaw0CT1E9rHhIN6nVXk_QkXkz%26ust%3D1519803142550969&psig=AOvVaw0CT1E9rHhIN6nVXk_QkXkz&ust=1519803142550969

No. 20 overlooked Dorset St.
What "outhouse"?, the Ronan sketch shows the W/C where it stood in 1909, but in 1888 the W/C was at the other end of Millers Court, next to units 5/6.
This is also where the 1890 Goad Plan shows them.
The "shed" was beneath room 20, and opened up onto Dorset St. This is where McCarthy kept his wheelbarrows.



The attic over No.27, yes.



Three of those six chimney's could belong to next door, No.25 Dorset St.



The internal stairs would enter the next level inline with the partition for rm 13, that's all we can reasonably conclude. This is what Richard's 3D model indicated.

[Debra A]

If we take it literally and have the door to #19 at the very top of the stairs (going parallel to the partition), then we have to place the stairs to the next floor, the storeroom and the door to #20 in positions that would agree with the rest of the court statements. The doors need to be positioned so you would see the other door when exiting either room, the storeroom would need to be on the passageway side of the landing and the stairs to floor 2 would need to be positioned to allow for all this. We know that the space between the rooms (#19 /#20) was 9ft and I read somewhere that the storeroom was described as 9ft x 5ft (think it was 5ft) so the storeroom spanned the width of the landing/narrow passageway. I don't think having stairs up the partition wall would allow for all this.

My model at the moment has the stairs running exactly like the Hanbury Street photo - directly in line with the front door, going up and turning to the right onto a landing with the door to #19 on the left and the storeroom right in front - room #20 to the right. This allows for the stairs to go up to the next level and also agrees with the court statements about:
"I kicked against this partition, which separates the witness Amory's room from the staircase; the partition ends at a small room called the storeroom"

There are multitude ways that I can arrange the 1st-floor landing but the model I have at the moment seems to tick many of the necessary boxes.

Yes, that makes sense, Richard.
The only thing that bothers me is that the signed statements used at Worship St Magistrates Court show some slight differences.
For example, in his statement , Amery describes the space between the two rooms as between 6 and 7 feet. Wouldn't that be the width of the narrow passage and the windowless room slotted between being that width?

[Wickerman]

Shed and outhouse are interchangeable.20 overlooked the four water closets.

No. 20 overlooked Dorset St.
What "outhouse"?, the Ronan sketch shows the W/C where it stood in 1909, but in 1888 the W/C was at the other end of Millers Court, next to units 5/6.
This is also where the 1890 Goad Plan shows them.
The "shed" was beneath room 20, and opened up onto Dorset St. This is where McCarthy kept his wheelbarrows.

3.5 floors implies all attic rooms belonged to 27.

The attic over No.27, yes.

The six chimneys means rooms 14 to 19 were counted for inhabitation,not a storeroom and stairs.

Three of those six chimney's could belong to next door, No.25 Dorset St.

The stairway would have run parallel to 13.

The internal stairs would enter the next level inline with the partition for rm 13, that's all we can reasonably conclude. This is what Richard's 3D model indicated.

[richardh]

If we take it literally and have the door to #19 at the very top of the stairs (going parallel to the partition), then we have to place the stairs to the next floor, the storeroom and the door to #20 in positions that would agree with the rest of the court statements. The doors need to be positioned so you would see the other door when exiting either room, the storeroom would need to be on the passageway side of the landing and the stairs to floor 2 would need to be positioned to allow for all this. We know that the space between the rooms (#19 /#20) was 9ft and I read somewhere that the storeroom was described as 9ft x 5ft (think it was 5ft) so the storeroom spanned the width of the landing/narrow passageway. I don't think having stairs up the partition wall would allow for all this.

My model at the moment has the stairs running exactly like the Hanbury Street photo - directly in line with the front door, going up and turning to the right onto a landing with the door to #19 on the left and the storeroom right in front - room #20 to the right. This allows for the stairs to go up to the next level and also agrees with the court statements about:
"I kicked against this partition, which separates the witness Amory's room from the staircase; the partition ends at a small room called the storeroom"

There are multitude ways that I can arrange the 1st-floor landing but the model I have at the moment seems to tick many of the necessary boxes.

Richard, out of interest; is there a problem with taking Roberts description literally? Does it conflict with any other descriptions?

Where do you have the narrow first floor passage situated on your model?