Living at Lane End in two rooms, more stories of one up one downs, part 2

This is a familiar enough picture and has cropped up in various collections over the years. It may date from the 1890s and there will be many who still remembered this junction of High Lane, Barlow Moor Road and Sandy Lane by its old name of Lane End, and a few might still have referred to it as Brundrett’s corner by virtue of the Brundrett family who had run a grocery shop at this point since the early 19th century.

And in away the Brundrett’s are the starting point to the story. Back in the 1840s Jeremiah Brundrett had owned the collection of four houses to the left of the white building which was the home and workshop of William Brownhill the wheelwright.

I suppose most of us looking at the picture would be drawn to the large house on the corner, and then to Brownhill's home, while the 4 terraced houses in a row would scarcely count a glance.
But that is a pity because they are another example of those one up one down cottages which the casual visitor could have seen across the township. These may well have been here by 1818 and certainly date from 1832 when their ownership qualified Jeremiah for a vote in the reformed Parliament of 1832.

Now looking at them it is hard to work out that they were one up one down properties, but the census returns record them as such. The internal lay out is lost to us but the front door would have opened directly into the downstairs room and a steep boxed in staircase would have led from the back of this room to the one upstairs. Earlier more simple properties dispensed with the stairs and just had a ladder made from a plank of wood with hand and foot holes. The ground floor would may have originally just been beaten earth or more likely stone slabs lay directly onto the bare earth.

In common with most such dwellings the lavatory would be at the back, and may have been shared. The rate books for the 1840s suggest that his tenants were paying about 2/6d a week. They were mainly manual workers and while by the end of the century the link with the land was broken there was still a gardener, a labourer, a chimney sweep and lamp lighter. In the earlier part of that century tracking how long families stayed is difficult but in the eight years from 1903 to 1911 each property changed hands at least once and in some cases twice in one year.

There were also cases of severe overcrowding. At the first of those houses in 1911, John and Margret Evans shared their two rooms with their three children while by contrast in another two the widowers Mary Ann Neild and Charles Walkden lived out their last years in the company of ageing children.

All three along with Brownhill’s home and business have long gone, and been replaced by two early 20th century semis while the land next to them which were the site of three slightly larger doubled fronted two op two downs is still and empty space. These also date from sometime in the early 19th century but I shall leave them till another day.

Picture; the Lloyd collection