View report page

3
The inhabitants of St. Luke are housed in premises consisting chiefly of two and three storeys,
situated in fairly wide streets which form the main thoroughfares of the district, and in narrower sid*>
streets off these. The district is entirely built over, there being no open space except in the centre
of King's-square and in the neighbourhood of Finsbury-square, where there is a small amount of
land unbuilt on in connection with militia barracks, and a disused burial ground. The two-storey
houses are to be found in the side streets and alleys; they are mostly old cottages showing signs of
decay, though at the time of inspection they were on the whole in a fair state of repair, owing to
the fact that they are constantly receiving attention from the officers of the authority. Each
house generally contains two rooms, one on the ground floor and the other on the top floor, the
staircase affording communication between the two being situated in the ground floor room, into which
also the door from the street directly opens. They mostly have small back yards, and some have in
addition a small room at the rear of the ground floor room which is used as a kitchen or washhouse.
These premises are mostly occupied by single families, but, in some cases by two, though from their
arrangement they are not adapted for this purpose. The houses three storeys in height are situated
chiefly in the larger thoroughfares; they generally contain an entrance passage and have two rooms,
one behind the other on each floor, but in some cases there are but three rooms in the house, one
on each floor. These premises are in nearly all instances occupied by members of more than one
family, this being so even in many cases where the ground floor is used as a shop. In the
better class streets the whole house is rented by one tenant, who sublets unfurnished one or more of
the rooms, while in the poorer class of street it is usually found that the rooms are let separately to
each tenant, there being no one person resident who has any control over the house generally, unless
the landlord arranges with one of the tenants to act as caretaker and to see that those parts of the
house used in common are kept in a proper and cleanly condition. In addition to the above-mentioned
housing accommodation considerable provision has been made for the inhabitants of the district
by the erection of blocks of model dwellings, especially in the neighbourhood of Whitecross-street.
These dwellings, it is stated by Dr. Yarrow, the medical officer of health of St. Luke, in
his annual report for 1896, are inhabited by as much as one-fifth of the total resident population.
Many of these blocks of dwellings were visited during the inquiry, and were found to be well
arranged in respect to the means of light and ventilation of the living rooms, and the provision made
for washhouses and water-closets, and they were clean and in good repair. In all instances the
blocks are in charge of a resident superintendent.
There are no houses in the district built back to back with the exception of a small block
known as Baltic-place and Baltic-court.
There are a few narrow courts and alleys, some of which are approached by an archway from
the adjoining street, and in some of which the houses having no back yards are provided with
waterclosets and washhouses for common use in the space in front of the houses. For the most
part, however, the houses in such cases being but two storeys high, and having but one room on
each floor, the evils arising from absence of open space at the rear of the premises is somewhat
diminished. The majority of premises have small yards. Some of these houses appear to be of
considerable age, and show signs of decay.
During the inquiry I visited 432 houses and in these defective conditions of sufficient import to
require the attention of the officers of the authority were noted as follows—Defective or insufficient
paving of yards in 63 instances; defective or dirty condition of waterclosets in 83 instances;
dilapidated dustbins or absence of proper covers in 66 instances, and undue accumulations of house
refuse in 13 instances. Domestic cisterns were found to be insufficiently covered or in a dirty state in
34 cases, and animals kept so as to be a nuisance were met with on 9 occasions. Dampness of walls
was noticed in 23 cases, but in a large number of the older houses matchboarding of walls exists, and
it is possible that in some of these after wet weather dampness would also be present. Inlets to
drains, which in the large majority of cases are placed outside the dwellings, were found to be in good
repair, in only 13 instances were they found defective or choked; defective stack pipes and gutters
were noticed in 10 cases. But the conditions requiring remedy and most frequently met with
relate to the interior of dwellings; thus in 146 tenements the rooms and staircases and
passages were in need of cleansing, while walls, ceilings and floors were dilapidated or defective in
71 cases, notwithstanding the fact stated by the sanitary inspector, that the rooms in many cases had
been cleansed after inspection made within the previous eighteen months. These conditions were
most marked in the poorer class of tenement houses referred to above as houses in which rooms are
let out separately. Inadequate water-closet accommodation for the number of residents in houses was
noticed on two occasions, and illegal occupation of basement rooms in three instances. Overcrowding
of rooms, judged by the standard adopted in the by-laws of the authority as to houses let in lodgings,
was noted in as many as 49 cases.
There are in the district 19 houses let in lodgings which have been registered, they are situated
in the following streets : Lever-street four houses, Bastwick-street five houses, Featherstone-street two,
and Honduras-street eight houses. Some of these were visited, and found for the most part in
compliance with the by-laws.
There are four registered common lodging-houses in St. Luke, three for the accommodation
of male lodgers, and one for both males and females. One of the lodging-houses consists partly of a
building formerly used as a mission room, and is not well adapted for its present purpose, and,
although improvements were effected upon the occasion of its transfer to the present keeper, the day
room accommodation is still unsuitable. Two of the houses are old premises, and frequently in need
of repair. The fourth house has lately been transferred, and is at the present time undergoing
mprovement.