Sorry - but I can't remember the opinions given to the point about most terraced houses having a step down into the kitchen and the back bedroom. Would anyone care to refresh my memory as I mentioned the fact to someone and they are now seeking an answer to this never before noticed fact.
Do they? None of the terraced houses I've ever been in have. One had a step down *out* of the kitchen into the dining room, which I always presumed was just due to the lie of the land, as there was a further step down into the living room.
-- JGH
I've lived in a couple of terraced houses where there was a step down into the kitchen, but originally it was a scullery/ wash house & I assumed it was to stop water encroaching into the main part of the house.
Don.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "John" saying something like:
Not in my experience and I've been in a lot of them over the years - sure, some have, but it seems to depend on local conditions, whim of the builder, etc.
The house spent most of my childhood in had a step down into a small back bedroom that had no electric light. The kitchen floor was level with the rest of the gound floor. Also had 3 cellars one of which had a water boiler..big concrete bowl/basin type thing. other 2 cellars had the old ranges...5 foot high things with a cast iron oven next to coal basket.
(excuse me...lump in my throat)
Arthur
It's the same when it was a kitchen -- allows mopping out. Areas to be sloshed out are solid floors too, whereas other areas usually aren't in older properties.
It can also have quite clever benefits elsewhere, e.g. the room above can be a step down, which allows shortening the staircase by a step, which allows it to be squeezed into a shorter length. That section of the builing is often a step's height lower right up to the roof, which is a saving in bricks and other materials.
Some do; some don't. No idea about relative frequency - though I'd doubt they were very common post early 20th C. And probably varies by area and nature of sites.
As Don said, to stop water getting into the rest of the house.
Because the kitchen would have a hard floor straight onto earth whereas the rest of the rooms would have suspended wooden floors. So easier to do that way without digging out so much, compromising underfloor ventilation, etc.
(I guess the back bedroom being lower would be just because the kitchen below is lower. Would take extra materials to raise it to the same level as the rest of the first floor. But I have a feeling I have seen a kitchen which had a higher ceiling so the back bedroom would have been the same level as the others. That might have been to allow more space for an airer.)
Very, very common around here in turn of the century terraced houses. Whole streets of them. I'd go along with 'most'.
The bedroom above has the same step down and is usually converted into a bathroom. Prolly wouldn't be allowed now as its off a bedroom and it certainly isn't convenient if a guest in the other bedroom wants the loo in the middle of the night.
My first ever house in Essex was the same.
Many terraced houses in Chatham & Strood are built on very steep slopes and have 2 or even 3 steps down. One house I worked in recently only has a hall & one room downstairs due to the extreem slope, rest of the house is up one flight of stairs.
My Victorian semi has a step down half way along the rear part of the lobby just before the kitchen which is in the rear addition. Nothing to do with water as the kitchen was originally two rooms - a kitchen with wood floor and a scullery with solid one. And I'm not sure why - the house is on level ground. Perhaps something to do with giving more room under the stairs for cellar access and pantry? The upper floor of the rear addition was originally a toilet, bathroom and bedroom - but straight off the half landing with no steps.
Thanks - looking around my area on Google Earth confirms it is usual. The roof gutter line is lower around the rear bedroom gable. (Of course the apex is a lot lower as it is a narrower roof.)
Very common in Yorkshire as well.
I am not sure how many lofts you have been in above the bathroom in these types of properties but I am shocked as to how many are open to the next door neighbours house. Just the bathroom loft not the main loft.
Adam
The house I lived in was an end of terrace so the loft over the back bedroom / bathroom was all enclosed. The back bedroom became a bathroom and a smaller bedroom. there was a passage from the stairs leading to this. Liked the glass panels in the roof - and corresponding frosted glass hatches into the loft - although we kept breaking them.
Seen a lot like that in Norwich. Front room, back room leading (to/off) the stairs; 3rd bed/box off the 2nd bedroom and a step down; kitchen, bathroom on a long thin bit out of the back only accessible from the back downstairs room. I suspect mostly late 19th/early 20thC.
Andy
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