View report page

8
living. Just as a plant grows sickly and fails to
thrive in a dim twilight, so people living their lives
in so sunless a simulacre of light become anaemic,
pallid and unhealthy.
Moreover, the air enclosed within these
bricked-in spaces stagnates. Sheltered from the
ceaseless movements of the outer air, it is unchanged
while all the time it is being vitiated by
the house air, the emanations from small and
stuffy bedrooms, from kitchens, sculleries and
W.C.'s which are ranged round a bricked shaft
or slit instead of opening to the free air.
The phase of the "back addition" in domestic
architecture, it is to be feared, has established
itself too firmly in the suburbs to be readily
replaced by a more sanitary style of building, but,
if it is to continue, something may be done to
check the inordinate development of which some
of the more recently erected houses afford a
"horrid example."
The bye-law of the Barnes District Council
is a step in the direction of minimising the evils
which spring from such defective planning.
Under the bye-law, the erection of the lateral
projections from the back additions—perhaps the
most objectionable feature yet developed—is rendered
illegal.
It further insists upon a minimum width of