Prater's stairs

[Wickerman]

This is the 1st floor landing for opinions please?

Mindreader!



Yes, that is possibly what the Kate Marshall case might suggest.
Even to the fact that it is pointed out that the partition of rm 20 is next to the stairs - you even have it like that, good job Richard!

Your rendition suits this observation from the case..

(Tenant of rm 20)...I saw the deceased coming out of her own door when I opened my door—I could see her door from where I was standing—Roberts and the prisoner were struggling on the right-hand side of my door, in the corner—the prisoner was sitting down on the floor,

[richardh]

Yay!

Maybe I'm getting there !

thanks

Mindreader!



Yes, that is possibly what the Kate Marshall case might suggest.
Even to the fact that it is pointed out that the partition of rm 20 is next to the stairs - you even have it like that, good job Richard!

Your rendition suits this observation from the case..

(Tenant of rm 20)...I saw the deceased coming out of her own door when I opened my door—I could see her door from where I was standing—Roberts and the prisoner were struggling on the right-hand side of my door, in the corner—the prisoner was sitting down on the floor,

[Rosella]

^ Excellent work Richard. I've always found it hard to visualise the different rooms and passageways of Millers Court. For instance at some stage a toilet block was charmingly situated opposite to no. 13, after Mary's time I think but there at the time of the trial in 1909!

In 'The Terrible Quiet' by Peter Wilson he quotes a report in the Manchester Guardian 10th November 1888.

'The dwelling in which the murder was committed is entered by two doors situated on the right hand side of the passage, and has several rooms.The first door up the court from the street leads to the upper rooms but the second door opens only into one room, which is situated on the ground floor. It was in this room that the murder was committed. The fireplace faces the door and the bed stands behind the door.'

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Elamarna;364391]

Do you you mean the one from the 1928?
Of course I have, you really do not understand do you, when i said "so were there none? How did people get into those properties." i wasn’t saying there were none i was attempting to draw your attention to the fact DOORS don't seem to be shown


OK. There are no entrance doors towards the street pointed out at any house in Dorset Street. Therefore, we have other sources. The Evening Express article is one source and the photograph is one source. They show the same door and windows in number 26 although they are produced in different years.


Thank you for making my point for me, the doors are not shown on the goad map.
You say there are no openings in the passage way on the map and therefore no doors are possible.


I am not saying the are not possible. I say we can not know. But we do know there is a passage with an archway above it. So I have made a suggestion for what it contained: A corridor.

your drawing does not show how you walk through a solid wall. it just shows a staircase going up to the first floor, there are NO openings on the map into the archway or 27

Since there are no door openings on the external walls except for the one in the passage we know nothing of possible doorways.

So hypothesizing that there was a doorway into the archway is one way of solving the problems with believing number 26 was filled with stairs in the shop and number 27 not being accessible from any other entrance than from McCarthys shop (S). And remember that number 26 was also a similar shop (S).

And I think it is a strong hypothesis since they must have had some way into the archway.

Or do you think the archway was closed and not possible to enter?

If you do, how do you explain the window on the drawings, or do you think they are not reliable

Regards Pierre

[richardh]

Looking at the front of 27 & 26 Dorset street, and speaking on for the front rooms on the 1st floor (rooms above 27 and room above 26), couldn;t those rooms have just taken up half of the archway space themselves? The archway was 34 inches (say 3 ft) wide. So the rooms above might have just been built 36 inches over the archway? Maybe the same goes for the rear rooms?

There are houses about now with those archways and they are generally constructed like that.

[Elamarna]

Don't you see,

the lack of doors on map is not proof of no doors.

We have sketches, showing doorways in the 27 side of the passage. post 363 shows one,therefore we have evidence of such entrances.
therefore an hypothesis for entry is not need. I do not consider your suggestion to be strong, it ignores the facts.
here is NO EVIDENCE to suggest that 27 could be entered via 26.

[Michael W Richards]

I think that the front door of No.26 did open into an internal passage that ran towards the staircase (originally).
The trouble is, any side or back wall to that 'shed', may have been removed to make the front room (shed) wide enough to store barrows.
So, by 1888 that front door may have been nailed shut.

My guess is that your probably right about the original access Jon, similar to the corridor arrangement at Hanbury. I think McCarthys "tuck" shop if you will was what created the need for the shed area, I believe he decided to sell sundries to the tenants as the occupancy grew and he used that space in the front of 26 to offload supplies for his shop.

One thing I wanted to note, the entrance to 27 is seen in the photo taken from the street which shows the archway splitting the doors to 26 and 27. There may well have been passage between the 2 buildings through the archway above, or those windows may just have been back alcove corners in respective rooms in 26 and 27, but the access to the inside of 27 is almost certainly that street facing door.

[Pierre]

Don't you see,

the lack of doors on map is not proof of no doors.

We have sketches, showing doorways in the 27 side of the passage. post 363 shows one,therefore we have evidence of such entrances.
therefore an hypothesis for entry is not need.

I agree with you on this, Steve. Relax!

But the problem is: McCarthy could not have had people running in and out of his door getting to their rooms, since he had a shop behind this door.

So how did they reach their rooms?

If you don´t want to put an arbitrary door anywhere in a wall you can easily use the door in the wall of 26 for an hypothesis that this door led to the archway where there was a corridor leading to all rooms in 26 and 27. It is the safest hypothesis since there actually was a doorway in 26 and an archway above.

Regards Pierre

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=richardh;364452]Looking at the front of 27 & 26 Dorset street, and speaking on for the front rooms on the 1st floor (rooms above 27 and room above 26), couldn;t those rooms have just taken up half of the archway space themselves? QUOTE]

A very good question!

The Goad´s explanation gives that the broken line - - - - - showing McCarthy´s wall means "Wall some floors only".

(http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlin...age154923.html

So Richardh: Please look at this and tell me what your answer to that question could be!

If i might answer it, I think the best hypothesis is that the stairs ran into the archway. There was a window. And it solves the problem with us thinking that people were frequenting stairs inside of McCarthy´s shop. It also gives you space for positioning the stairwell inside the arch. Then the stairway will also be placed exactly by the side of the door ("partition) in 13 Miller´s Court and you can use the correct measure for the doorway (the opening) between 13 and 26!

Regards Pierre

[Elamarna]

Sorry Pierre,,

They could have reached their rooms from the door in the sketch 363, which we have some evidence for.

The map as it stands does not suggest that the archway was a passage.
There is no entrance or exit in the long corridor as you see it.

Why do you need to invent this has an entrance way, when there is some evidence( post 363) of another means of entrance? (if there wasn’t i could understand)

By the way, am very relaxed, indeed most of the time when reading your posts I smile and laugh, if nothing else you are a relaxing alternative to the world news.

cheers

Elamarna

[Elamarna]

[QUOTE=Pierre;364458]

Looking at the front of 27 & 26 Dorset street, and speaking on for the front rooms on the 1st floor (rooms above 27 and room above 26), couldn;t those rooms have just taken up half of the archway space themselves? QUOTE]

A very good question!

The Goad´s explanation gives that the broken line - - - - - showing McCarthy´s wall means "Wall some floors only".



(http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlin...age154923.html

So Richardh: Please look at this and tell me what your answer to that question could be!

If i might answer it, I think the best hypothesis is that the stairs ran into the archway. There was a window. And it solves the problem with us thinking that people were frequenting stairs inside of McCarthy´s shop. It also gives you space for positioning the stairwell inside the arch. Then the stairway will also be placed exactly by the side of the door ("partition) in 13 Miller´s Court and you can use the correct measure for the doorway (the opening) between 13 and 26!

Regards Pierre

Yes Pierre that could well be, but there is no opening on the 26 side of archway.

my problem is that you appear to cherry pick, you accept the plan when it suits you and reject it when it does not.

[Robert St Devil]

You are missing the other part of the legend explanation for dashed lines - WOODEN OR PLASTER PARTITION, SOME FLOORS ONLY.

[Pierre]

You are missing the other part of the legend explanation for dashed lines - WOODEN OR PLASTER PARTITION, SOME FLOORS ONLY.

No Robert. I am not missing it. But why should a shop have a partition instead of a wall? And why should the archway have two walls?

Regards Pierre

[Pierre]

[QUOTE=Elamarna;364460]

Yes Pierre that could well be, but there is no opening on the 26 side of archway.

my problem is that you appear to cherry pick, you accept the plan when it suits you and reject it when it does not.

No Steve. Your problem is that you have chosen to simply refuse anything I say. And how could you get any knowledge by using that principle?

I know you and some of the others here only want to show everyone else that "Pierre is wrong". And therefore you have developed some strategies for doing just that. You do not want this case to be solved. And I can understand that. Writing in this forum, getting cred from the others, makes people think they are clever. But I don´t have any interest in trying to show others that I am clever (which I am not). So the strategies are of no interest for me. But the destroy any possibility of a serious discussion.

[MBDecre]

Re Pierre's post 394 pics with the newspaper drawing of No. 26 showing a broad boarded area or large doors, where his later photo shows wall and windows... the former doors were probably bricked in to become the later windowed frontage.

There is research showing that around the JtR period McCarthy used to leave these big doors badly secured and 'undesirables' were found often sleeping etc in the cart store inside. He was warned to lock the doors better, but people still managed to get in.

Interestingly, at least one early newspaper report gave the site of MJK's body being found by boys inside the cart 'shed' behind these large doors in Pierre's pic.

I can think of how locals might be less than exact in telling reporters something like, "The murder was down there at McCarthy's at No.26, you'll find he has a cart shed there and the body was found at the back of that." Not quite un-true, really. But that could end up being misconstrued as per the early news report.

Understanding how the body could have been found by boys is less easy. Perhaps it was simply that they spread the news locally after the discovery by the usual names we know. Again, easily misunderstood.