Prater's stairs

[Robert St Devil]

Or they could have closed the gap between the bricks with a partition. So that no 13 could be converted into a rental.

[Pierre]

Or they could have closed the gap between the bricks with a partition. So that no 13 could be converted into a rental.

Or they could have closed the gap, that is the doorway, with the door.

So it could be used as a rental.

Regards Pierre

[Wickerman]

Thank you Jon. That does solve that puzzle. But it also creates a new one, for me at least.

You are saying that the map shows that there is an opening on the ground floor wall of 26 Dorset Street into the passage? Is that right?

Yes David, there are several examples on these plans of "1st", or "2nd" used to denote an opening in a wall.

If the plan is accurate, it's an opening of some four feet, right? What kind of opening would that have been? Window? Door? Gate? Something else?

I don't think there is a reason to expect openings in brick walls to be drawn to scale. These are fire insurance maps, if suitable access was a concern then all front & rear entrances would be included, and they are not.
Internal openings (doorways?) only appear to be shown in brick walls, but not shown in internal partition walls. The reason they are shown at all just might have something to do with the spreading of fire from one room to another on the ground floor (first floor).
Though consistency seems to be a problem across these maps.

[Elamarna]

Pierre,

wasn’t commenting until Richard has finished but just got told about the what i consider to be a very personal attack

Post 150

Photo of a brick wall!

I certainly know what a brick wall is. English is MY first language.

Not content will actually calling me a liar, now you insult me.

Need say nothing, let others judge you by your comments.

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Elamarna;364052]

Not content will actually calling me a liar, now you insult me.

Steve, I have never called you a liar. So there is no need for you to feel insulted.

Regards Pierre

[Elamarna]

Pierre


"Steve, I have never called you a liar. So there is no need for you to feel insulted."

Well how do you explain this ? i have underlined the words used:



THREAD :Bowyer´s inquest testimony

PAGE: 23

POST: 228

"From what figures exactly?

"you are saying the bed is 9ft long."

- are you quoting me? You are lying. I have not used those words. Why are you lying Steve? Just for the fun of it? Or what is your problem?"

Additionally

to post a picture of a brick wall( post 150 this thread) so that i know what one looks like, is insulting

i was not quoting you, that was obvious from my original post, i asked you to apologise. You have not

[Wickerman]

The goads map shows a broken line running across the back of Nos 27 & 26, seen here by the three red circles.
This is the back wall of the houses.



We also have a contemporary sketch showing the rear of 26 & 27, and we see the house wall running down from the roof - assuming it is accurate.
Room 13 is built up against this house wall.



It must be accepted then that the broken line does indicate a brick wall, being the rear wall of both houses, 26 & 27.

The fact the line is broken will indicate access through, but does not indicate what size that access is. It could be a single door, a double door, pocket sliding doors (originally), or even the installation of a RSJ (Rolled Steel Joist) over a wide opening, in order to give support to the wooden floor joists in the floors above.

[David Orsam]

Sorry if I was unclear. The access way to the salon may well have had a door, although it needn't have to fit the description of an average Victorian sitting room. If there was a door then both sides of the wall supporting the door would be plastered brick. This would have been disassembled when the more permanent segmenting of the room from the house was done. Which is why the door nailed into the "partition wall" is closer to the front corner of Marys room than the salon opening would have been originally.

I'm not averse to the notion of the supporting wall having been disassembled by 1888 but the problem we face is that the Goad map is dated May 1890 and the "brick wall" is, supposedly, still there.

That goes back to my wondering how the Goad maps were created. If they were from the original plans then they might well have been out of date in 1890. But if Goad sent people round to every property to measure up and take note of the internal structures in order to create their maps then I would expect them to be accurate.

[David Orsam]

I don't think there is a reason to expect openings in brick walls to be drawn to scale. These are fire insurance maps, if suitable access was a concern then all front & rear entrances would be included, and they are not.
Internal openings (doorways?) only appear to be shown in brick walls, but not shown in internal partition walls. The reason they are shown at all just might have something to do with the spreading of fire from one room to another on the ground floor (first floor).

Okay I accept that the door openings might not have been to scale.

But I'm not exactly sure what you are saying this opening actually is.

Is it the door to the stairs & Prater's room?

Or do you think it could be the gate that is referred to in the newspaper report you cited?

Or is it something else?

[David Orsam]

We also have a contemporary sketch showing the rear of 26 & 27, and we see the house wall running down from the roof - assuming it is accurate.
Room 13 is built up against this house wall.

The interesting thing about that sketch is that it only shows a single door down the entire passage. Yet if you look at the 1899 sketch posted in this thread at the time of the Eliza Roberts murder we see a door almost adjacent to the door to Room 13. So one of those sketches must be wrong.

[David Orsam]

Originally number 26 had a brick wall with stairs behind it, (in what later became mjks room (but slightly larger than we know it.

Then when the building was sliced up for rooms to live in a orations was erected in MJKs side if the stairs so anyone entering the stairs couldn't see into her room?

I'm hopeless at posting sketches, that then effectively gives 3 rooms, 26, a small room that is now between 26 and Mary's room that is in effect little more than a stair well, (enclosed on one side by the brick wall on Giads and the Partition spoken of in evidence, and finally 13.

You enter 26 from the Street

Pratters stairwell from the passage and Mary's we know about.

As I said just a thought that seems to make the evidence fit, and makes sense (I think) for someone trying to get maximum use out of the building.

This is what I thought the solution to the problem might be but, if the plan is accurate, the space between the windows and the brick wall is only 9ft and you are surely going to need at least 3ft (more?) to squeeze in a space for the corridor to the staircase. That takes the width of Mary's room down to just 6ft. It's very small. Is it possible do you think?

[Wickerman]

That goes back to my wondering how the Goad maps were created. If they were from the original plans then they might well have been out of date in 1890. But if Goad sent people round to every property to measure up and take note of the internal structures in order to create their maps then I would expect them to be accurate.

For what its worth David, I would expect the only workable procedure is for original plans of new construction to be submitted to the City so they can update their Ordnance Survey Maps.

Landlords like McCarthy may have reworked any internal wooden walls to suit himself, but it is unlikely McCarthy submitted official plans to the City. It likely was not necessary for partition walls.
The Ordnance Survey Maps, in my opinion, will reflect how Nos. 26 & 27 were originally built, not necessary how they looked in 1888 (or whenever the map was dated).
McCarthy could have divided an original large room into two or three smaller rooms to increase his tenancy, we would never know this from the Goads Plans.

Perhaps these internal modifications are the reason the room numbers are not making any sense to us today?

[David Orsam]

For what its worth David, I would expect the only workable procedure is for original plans of new construction to be submitted to the City so they can update their Ordnance Survey Maps.

Landlords like McCarthy may have reworked the internal walls to suit himself, but it is unlikely McCarthy submitted official plans to the City.
The Ordnance Survey Maps, in my opinion, will reflect how Nos. 26 & 27 were originally built, not necessary how they looked in 1888 (or whenever the map was dated).
McCarthy could have divided an original large room into two or three smaller rooms to increase his tenancy, we would never know this from the Goads Plans.

Perhaps these internal modifications are the reason the room numbers are not making any sense to us today?

Yes that could well explain everything.

My only reservation would be that Goad knows that the front of 26 is a shop (with 2 floors above) and the back is a 2 floor tenement building, as opposed to the whole thing being a single residential property. So I'm wondering where, for Goad, the stairs would have been (and how the residents on the upper floor in the tenement building could have accessed them to get to their rooms). On the diagram that we have, they can only either be in the shop or in the back room. So that's either intrusive for the shop or the person(s) living in the back room.

You would think there must be some kind of sectioned off area for that staircase but nothing is shown. Perhaps we can't expect quite so much detail from these plans.

I'm still puzzling over what that "opening" is.

[Wickerman]

Okay I accept that the door openings might not have been to scale.

But I'm not exactly sure what you are saying this opening actually is.

Is it the door to the stairs & Prater's room?

Yes, I see no reason to think this opening was not the first door down the passage which led to the stairs to the upper floors - AKA Prater's door.

Or do you think it could be the gate that is referred to in the newspaper report you cited?

No, the "gate" will have been a front entrance created by McCarthy into the front room of No.26, to get his barrows inside. Now called the "shed".
Millers Court passage was not wide enough for a Costermongers barrow to fit down.

The interesting thing about that sketch is that it only shows a single door down the entire passage. Yet if you look at the 1899 sketch posted in this thread at the time of the Eliza Roberts murder we see a door almost adjacent to the door to Room 13. So one of those sketches must be wrong.

There are three or four sketches looking at Kelly's room from Millers Court, all of them have differences.
From our point of view, it makes no difference how far down the passage "Prater's door" was, the Goads Plan shows an opening, and all the press accounts agree that there were only two doors into No.26, Kelly's was the second, "Praters" was the first, there were no others mentioned.

[David Orsam]

No, the "gate" will have been a front entrance created by McCarthy into the front room of No.26, to get his barrows inside. Now called the "shed".
Millers Court passage was not wide enough for a Costermongers barrow to fit down.

How wide was a Costermongers barrow and how wide was Miller's Court?

(I've seen 2ft 10" given as the answer to the latter but is this confirmed?)