32 Frederick Street
3 History - The House
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32 Frederick Street, like the neighbouring houses on the street, displays an early Edwardian architectural influence. It is a two storey mid terrace built from brick and stone walls with a timber and tiled roof with terracotta mouldings (original section plan shown right). The original plans show drainage was by means of 4″ and 6″ glazed stoneware socketted pipes jointed in cement and connected to the existing sewer at rear. The original plans submitted by the builder show the four vacant building plots and detailed section drawing. |
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The internal plans (left) show the proposed layout of the house. A hallway (like the one below from the same period) leads to the parlour at the front with large bay window and fireplace, kitchen at the back with range and an adjoining scullery with back door. Upstairs there are three bedrooms, all with windows and fireplaces. The parlour (or ‘front’ or ‘best’ room) was an important room to most working-class families, a shrine to respectability and domesticity it was often a setting for special occasions. The provision of a scullery meant the sink and copper (previously in the kitchen) could be moved to a utility area. Cooking and washing of clothes and dishes could now take place in the scullery and the kitchen could be retained as a place for eating and general living. Cooking would have mostly been done on a range in the kitchen, like the one on the right, which is shown in poor condition with original gas lamp above. |
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The photos on the left and right show an early interior of a scullery with ceramic sink and a copper (possibly coal fired) in a brick built surround with a wooden lid, used to heat water for washing clothes or bathing. In the space outside the back of the house are the coal store and W.C. This private patch of territory marked an improvement in working-class housing standards where each house could accommodate an individual privy, compared with conditions in the mid-century where broken and overflowing cesspools often shared by occupants of a dozen or more houses were common. However, still in 1903 it was still very unusual for house builders to risk locating the water closet inside the house itself, so as with 32 Frederick Street it was located in the back yard. |
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Our house on Frederick Street is the type that would have been rented by the skilled or better-paid workers. It was very uncommon for people to own their own homes at the beginning of the century so most people rented from private landlords. Information from the 1905 Wrights Bristol Directory and the 1901 Census (available at the Record Office or online) tells us that our house was first occupied by Mr Edward Webber, a 27 year old Grocers Assistant who lived with his wife Eleanor. Both were local people having been born in the Parish of Horfield. The Webber’s neighbours included John C. Powell, a Carpenter and Joiner and his wife Clara, and Tom Waters, a Clothiers Assistant who shared the adjoining three bedroom house with his wife Maud and four children, Polly, Jan, Reg and William. |
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Local history books and wider literature on this period
of history can be useful in understanding the background of when and why
a house was built.
Sources for Frederick Street:
All images © Bristol's City Record Office except where indicated |
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except where acknowledged