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put in to replace the shop stall-boards, and are frequently unprovided
with an open fireplace and flue, so that they have to be warmed by
flueless gas stoves of what is known as the "condensing" pattern.
The workroom is sometimes a front room, with no communication with
a back room; but in some of this class of workrooms there is a door
opening into a back room, which may be also used as a workroom, this
room being lighted by a window opening into an enclosed courtyard,
very dark by reason of the height of the enclosing buildings, the room
itself being often also unprovided with any fireplace or flue. In again
another classs, there may be no wall separating the front of the workroom
from the area under the pavement lights, and the w.o. in the vault
ventilates directly into the workroom.
If regulations were made by the Secretary of State for the Home
Department, prohibiting the use of underground rooms for workshops
unless they complied with certain conditions, architects in designing
new buildings of this class would cause the underground rooms to
conform with the regulations, so that the shops and basements might
be let at the full rental value.
I would suggest that the regulations to be framed should require
(1) a certain proportion of glazed fanlight area (above the street level),
according to the floor surface of the basement room, a certain proportion
of this fanlight area to be made to open for ventilation; (2) that no
room should be used as a workroom, which has not some means of
through ventilation, either by a window, or through a door and
adjoining room with window, to the back area or courtyard; (3) that
the w.c. should not be in a vault under the street ventilating directly
into the workroom, or into an area which is only top-lighted, without
means of ventilation, and which either is part of the workroom or has a
window from the workroom opening into it; (4) that the w.c. should
not open directly or be ventilated into an underground workroom; (5)
that there should be an open fireplace and flue in every basement workroom
; or, if a gas stove is to be used, a proper flue should be provided
to carry off the products of combustion.
It probably would not be possible to make existing underground
workshops comply at once with the regulations to be framed; but it
might be feasible to apply the regulations to existing workshops after a
certain period, in the same manner as the Factory and Workshops Act
Sections were made to apply to underground bakehouses after a certain
period, which allowed owners and occupiers to make the necessary
alterations after due notice.
London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1904.
Under Part IV. (Sanitary) of this Act, which came into force in
1904, power is given to the London Sanitary Authorities on the
certificate of the Medical Officer of Health (1) to cleanse, purify, or
destroy any articles in any house that are in such a filthy, dangerous,
on unwholesome condition that health is affected or endangered thereby,