Millers Court - the demolition picture

[Chris Scott]

At the link below you will find the pic of the demolition of Dorset/Duval Street in 1928

http://photos.casebook.org/displayimage.php?album=6&pos=13

This includes the back of Millers Court as seen below:


To get my bearing on this I have marked three features;
Red - the chimney incorporated into the tall wall that rose beside Millers Court
Blue - the window of Elizabeth Prater's room
Magenta - the window in the floor above Prater's room
I have also used the same colours in the sketch of the back of Millers Court to correspond
I found this useful and others may also
Chris

[Bailey]

Thanks for that, Chris. I'd seen this shot a couple of times, but never really got anything out of it more than idle curiosity - this gives it a bit more meaning!

Cheers,
B.

[Natalie Severn]

I too found the colour coding very helpful Chris! It can easily look too much of a jumble of old bricks without something to focus on.
Norma

[Suzi]

Superb Chris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Excellent 'eh Nats!

Incredibly interesting- just working out where people walked -and more to the point how they got back and fore from where they were walking to and from in the first place (and why they were off to in the first place...or could that be
plaice- if there were/ was a fish shop on the way!!!!)!!!!!!!!

Thanks xxxxxxxxxx

[Robert]

Yes, very useful, Chris. I wouldn't even have known it was Miller's Court unless I'd been told. It just looks like someone's outside loo getting the chop - hopefully with no one inside...

[Graham]

I've seen those pics before, Chris, but until your colour-coding they didn't mean much to me. Can I ask how you were able to precisely pin-point the location?

Also, when did the demolition take place? Around 1930, was it?

Cheers,

Graham

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
I have always loved that picture, showing the remains of Millers Court, it is a great photograph.
What becomes apparent is the location of Praters room, it is so close to room 13,something which one tends to forget in discussing the noises of that fateful night, no wonder she stated she could hear everything going on in that room...
Regards Richard.

[Graham]

Whoops, just noticed you dated the picture as 1928....

...blind as a bat, me.

Graham

[richardnunweek]

Hi.
Fancy being a labourer doing the ground work on that site, talk about future assets for E-bay, speaking of that it was said the site foreman was flogging bricks, and momentoes from the murder scene, now that is enterprise.
Richard.

[Chris Scott]

Indeed - imagine what the Millers Court sign shown in the photo taken from Dorset Street would fetch now!!

[Sam Flynn]

Indeed - imagine what the Millers Court sign shown in the photo taken from Dorset Street would fetch now!!

I've got a piece of the true cross from the partition wall if anyone's interested

[Roy Corduroy]

Yes Gareth I'm interested! Why don't you throw a big holiday party at that luxe tower out by your place. Have us all over to view the artifact.

Roy

[George Hutchinson]

The actual full-sized image of the demolition is dated but I don't have access to it at the moment. I think it is sometime in April. Jake will be your man for that one. The famous pair of photos by Leonard Matters were taken, I think, in late January of that year just before they came down. This would explain, for example, the fact that the first floor (in the English sense) windows of #27 have been taken out in the Matters shots.

The photo this detail comes from is considerably larger and was taken from a height in Brushfield Street, looking SE. In higher-res copies you can see the lamp in Millers Court and the remains of the western side, by that time largely reduced to foundations. The original image is also like a game of WHERE'S WALLY? because although it looks empty, there's actually over a dozen workmen hidden in the wasteland. You can sadly only just see a tiny, tiny fragment of #13 in the 1928 shot as it is almost entirely covered by fencing and walls.

PHILIP

[Brenda]

So the picture we are looking at now was taken by Leonard Matters or did I misunderstand? My question is that I wonder if whoever took the picture was concentrating on showing 13 Millers Court or if it was just a random picture?

[George Hutchinson]

Hi Brenda. Matters had nothing to do with the demolition picture. Matters took the two famous photographs of the entrance to Millers Court with the rickety chair at the side.

The photo on this thread was showing the demolition of the block. It's a big, wide photo showing all of the demolition of that side of Brushfield Street and Duval Street, around half the length of it. The whole of Millers Court, let alone #13, occupies less than 1% of the full image. It's a photographic needle in a haystack.

PHILIP