Prater's stairs

[richardh]

I later revised the plan to show a corridor and a separate enclosed store room with the corridor being in a reversed 'L' shape, something I described early on in this thread.

Stephen, do you have an illustration/drawing of this revised plan so I can... revise my model ?

I wanna get this as right as I can.

[Stephen Thomas]

Good and bad points - Thomas model:
Good points:
Main stairs are in the correct place (facing the front door).
Prater's door and the 2nd steps are in a position and location that supports her assertion of seeing light as she ascends the stairs.
Shed can be conveniently partitioned from the rest of the house but the front door can still be used to access the upper floors.
Bad points:
Lots of work & expence adding a new doorway, stairs and partition.
The 1st floor layout doesn't agree with the testimony of the Kate Marshall case.
Prater lived in the front room (#20) but there is no direct access to #20 from 'Prater's door or steps'
The partition would intrude the floor space of #13 & #19 by 3ft reducing the size of the rooms.

Hi Richard

If the front door was not accessible to tenants on the upper floors of #26 then another way had to be found. I've never said or even implied that Room 20 could be directly accessed from the back stairs. Even on my scruffy drawing from many years ago Prater would have had to have traversed a store room (formerly the 1st floor back parlour of #26) to get to the 6x3 foot landing on the main stairs. I later revised the plan to show a corridor and a separate enclosed store room with the corridor being in a reversed 'L' shape, something I described early on in this thread. Lo and behold when David's good work unearths new testimony in the Kate Marshall case we find the corridor mentioned for the first time ever and described as a dark passage. Also the mention of a partition implies that the store room had wooden walls which I find interesting. It would seem that Roberts struggled with Marshall along the dark corridor and they ended up on the small landing outside room 20 followed by the mortally wounded Eliza Roberts who left some blood on the partition wall of the store room. I realise that you have based your Goads Plan on Amory's statement at the Old Bailey trial that he could see Robert's door from his own and this did throw me for a little while until I realised that the logical and inevitable layout of a bog standard small Georgian terrace house meant that this was impossible.

As regards the stuff about the partition and Prater's stairs eating into the floor space of #13 and #19 one could say 'so what?' but there is an interesting question here. Illustrations show that the fireplace in #13 is in the dead centre of the wall which normally would mean that the room and the staircase were constructed at the same time which begs the question of whether #13 was part of the main house originally with the partition and staircase behind or whether #13 and #19 were added on later probably when the houses in the court were built.

[Bridewell]

I'm wondering if the original architect's drawings for the address might still be on file somewhere? That would settle it. London Metropolitan Archive perhaps?

[richardh]

Hi Pierre,
On my model the 'door' is in the correct position. The space depicted on the Goad Plan starts about 5ft from the passage wall and spans 5ft. I have placed the 'door' partition 5ft from the passage wall but because a door is only 3ft wide the rest of the 5ft is filled with more partition.

Hi Richardh,

I mean the door visible in MJK1. It should be positioned right in the middle of the doorway in Goad´s map. Between 13 and 26.

Regards, Pierre

[Pierre]

When you say 'door' Pierre, are you referring to the boarded up 'door' partition or the actual main door to #13?

The partition 'door' starts about 4ft in from the passage wall.

Hi Richardh,

I mean the door visible in MJK1. It should be positioned right in the middle of the doorway in Goad´s map. Between 13 and 26.

Regards, Pierre

[Wickerman]

Why is the door to number 13 inside the space of the staircase?

Like Richard, I'm having trouble understanding the question.

All I can say is, the door Kelly used to room 13 is after the end of the passage, where it has always been.

There is a partition approximately central in the house wall between room 13 & the stairwell. It occupies no specific location as it's true position can only be estimated, and it makes no difference to the house if it is placed central.

[richardh]

When you say 'door' Pierre, are you referring to the boarded up 'door' partition or the actual main door to #13?

The partition 'door' starts about 4ft in from the passage wall.

Why is the door to number 13 inside the space of the staircase?

[Pierre]

Well Richard, this last version you uploaded:

https://sketchfab.com/models/b53af01f7aa44b61be93a538ec135620

Appears to address all the witness testimony that is known and is consistent with established building practices.
We have to accept that we will never know the actual floor plan, and there could always be variations on this theme.
I should say 'we rest our case' Richard, this is as good as it is likely to get.

You've done a terrific job Richard, thankyou.

Why is the door to number 13 inside the space of the staircase?

[Wickerman]

Going off thread slightly, I was reading up on stuff and this quote from Mrs. Prater really got to me. The bit I've highlighted actually made me blink back a tear:



What a retched existence.

One point that occurred to me is something I read on the social conditions.
Some of these hovels the people were expected to live in, and pay rent for were in some cases robbed for wood to burn as the poverty stricken tenants couldn't afford to buy kindling to burn to keep warm in winter. So removing a panel of wood here and there, stair risers, cupboard doors, shelves, etc. to burn may have been more common than we allow for.

[richardh]

Going off thread slightly, I was reading up on stuff and this quote from Mrs. Prater really got to me. The bit I've highlighted actually made me blink back a tear:

Mrs. Prater was interviewed by a Star reporter the following day and claimed to have seen Kelly' body in situ:
"She lived in No. 13 room, and mine is No. 20, which IS ALMOST OVER HERS. She was about 23 years old. I have known her since July - since I came to lodge here. She was tall and pretty, and as fair as a lily. I saw her go out in the shell this afternoon, but the last time I saw her alive was at about nine o'clock on Thursday night. I stood down at the bottom of the entry, and she came down. We both stood talking a bit, thinking what we were going to do, and then she went one way and I went another. I went to see if I could see anybody." Mrs. Prater adds with frankness, "She had got her hat and jacket on, but I had not. I haven't got a hat or a jacket. We stood talking a bit about what we were going to do, and then I said, 'Good night, old dear,' and she said 'Good night, my pretty.' She always called me that. That," said Mrs. Prater, "was the last I saw of her." Then Mrs. Prater breaks down, and commences to sob violently. "I'm a woman myself," she says, "and I've got to sleep in that place to-night right over where it happened." Mrs. Prater saw the dead and mutilated body through the window of Kelly's room, which it is to be remembered was on the ground floor. The pump stands just by there, and Mrs. Prater took advantage of a journey for some water to peep through the window for which, when the door was broken open, the curtains were torn down. She says, "I could not bear to look at it only for a second, but I can NEVER FORGET THE SIGHT of it if I live to be a hundred.

What a retched existence.

[richardh]

To me, the very fact that she drew particular reference to a door to 'which opens outwards' suggests that it was unusual.

I noticed that myself, I would say because this door was not erected by a carpenter, it isn't original.

There is another possibility, but we have no indication that all the other tenement doors opened outwards either - maybe they did, maybe they didn't.
One advantage to McCarthy installing a tenants door backwards is that the hinges are exposed on the outside.
If, he gets a lousy tenant who wont let him in, the hinge pin can be knocked out and the door will lift off from outside.

I would say because this door was not erected by a carpenter, it isn't original.

So perhaps the original #19 door was boarded over and a new door positioned somewhere else along that wall? Maybe the installation of the store room (spare room) between the two rooms and against the chimney wall meant that the door to #19 was in the way (suggesting the door to #19 was originally close to the chimney wall and needed re-positioning mid-wall?).

[Wickerman]

Am I reading this correct? Does the door open OUT into the landing/passage?

If so, why?


ROBERTS "the door opens into the passage"
MARSALL: "I knew he was going to do one of us an injury, but I thought it was me, and I jumped back, when I saw his hand go to my sister, but I felt certain that it was meant for me—she never screamed, but said. "Oh, Jesus," and ran out the door, which opens outwards"

I noticed that myself, I would say because this door was not erected by a carpenter, it isn't original.

There is another possibility, but we have no indication that all the other tenement doors opened outwards either - maybe they did, maybe they didn't.
One advantage to McCarthy installing a tenants door backwards is that the hinges are exposed on the outside.
If, he gets a lousy tenant who wont let him in, the hinge pin can be knocked out and the door will lift off from outside.

[richardh]

Am I reading this correct? Does the door open OUT into the landing/passage?

If so, why?


ROBERTS "the door opens into the passage"
MARSALL: "I knew he was going to do one of us an injury, but I thought it was me, and I jumped back, when I saw his hand go to my sister, but I felt certain that it was meant for me—she never screamed, but said. "Oh, Jesus," and ran out the door, which opens outwards"

[DJA]

[QUOTE=richardh;367667]

Today I was searching for images to help me and I saw this one which made me think of the partition and the stairs going up along its length. There's even a door that would lead from the shed to #13 at the foot of the stairs

Thought it was that simple.

You've covered many angles,which is a good thing.

Well done.

[Wickerman]

Been reading the Old Bailey testimoeny and gleaned these bits of info:

The Stairs outside room 20 go up:
"Roberts knocked at the wainscotting and asked for help—Amory rushed and opened the door—he went out first—Mary Johnson followed him and then I [Jackson] went out and saw Roberts hand Amory a knife—he took it out of the prisoner's hand—I saw him—I held the lamp myself"
"when Roberts first had the prisoner there was no light—Jackson stood by the stairs which go upstairs with the lamp"
So Jackson came out of room #20 behind Johnson who had followed Amory. Jackson was at the foot of the UP stairs which go up the partition which is the wall to #20

The door to #19 opens INTO the landing:
ROBERTS "the door opens into the passage"
MARSALL: "I knew he was going to do one of us an injury, but I thought it was me, and I jumped back, when I saw his hand go to my sister, but I felt certain that it was meant for me—she never screamed, but said. "Oh, Jesus," and ran out the door, which opens outwards"

The passageway and landing are interchangeable words for the same thing:
MARSHALL: "I caught him again, and we struggled towards the door, getting out on to the dark landing—he had not got hold of my wrists than, but when we got on to the landing he had them—he tired to get my hair and my throat in the room—on the landing he put his leg behind me, and I went flat over on my back—my head was close to Amory's door—I dragged Roberto over with me—I was lying along the Passage with my feet towards my own door"

The door #20 and the partition are used interchangeably by Marshell:

MARSHALL: "my head hit the partition—I kept on screaming, but nobody came till I fell"
MARHSALL: "I did not hear Roberts call for help—Johnson and Amory never came to the door till my head struck against it"

From this bit of extra info it suggests:
the stairs from the passageway run UP against the wall that contains #13's partition and the landing is outside #19.

The Stairs outside #20 go up to the next floor.
The wall with the door of #20 is wooden and referred to as a partition.
If the stairs from the ground floor to the 1st floor run from passageway up the partition wall of #13 then the stairs that run from 1st floor to 2nd floor run the other way up and along #20's partition.

Is this a reasonable interpretation?

Good enough Richard.
If I'm not mistaken, this mirrored stairs arrangement puts the design back to being similar to Hanbury St., where you had it originally? The location of the passage door (Praters Door) should not change.