Why were terraces built with the communal access between the house and garden?

[MotionActivatedDog]

I’ve lived in a house like this and there are lots were I live. All originally council built properties. I never understood why the shared access was between the houses and garden (diagram 1) instead of at the bottom of the garden. (Diagram 2)

For me having small children and a dog it was a nuisance as I couldn’t ever leave my back door open for them to potter in the garden. It also meant people were walking right past my kitchen window as we were eating dinner.

Does anyone know why they were built this way?

@tiredanddangerous

I rented one like this years ago. Mowing the grass was problematic because it was too far from the house for the cord to reach

Oh yes!! I have memories of ducking under neighbours electrical cords as they cut their grass!

Great question! I have no idea, but I'm curious to know the answer too. Could there be drains or access covers on the alley way that they didn't want to be covered by private gardens?

I've never seen houses like this!

The Victorian ones I’ve lived in historically had outhouses behind with shared washing facilities (and presumably toilets? It was just marked as a wash house) as well as being access for coal, refuse etc. Very standard set-up for terraced houses of a certain age, just not ideal for modern living if you have kids or pets. End of terrace not so bad as you can usually fence that one off.

Many terraces have been built on farmland historically as my old house was. The back alley was because there had to be a right of way for the farmer to move his cows from the field to the farmyard. The gardens were leasehold whilst the houses freehold. Farmer sold our gardens before we bought our house and now bungalows are on it!

I wouldn’t buy a house like this fir that exact reason - would be able to leave the four open for my DS to potter. For that matter, even without a child I wouldn’t - sometimes I have a wee nap on the sofa in summer with the french windows open to the garden, you could really do that with neighbour access between the garden and house. One of my friends has a 17th century cottage with a lovely garden - only drawback is that several neighbours behind her home have their one access route between her house and the garden, and she has a 2 year old. It’s not even the risk of someone snatching him, it’s the worry about someone leaving the gate open and him wandering onto the road.

I grew up in a house like this in the 80s. It had a coal bunker outside the back door and used to have an outdoor toilet, thankfully my parents installed the first indoor bathroom into it before moving in. It was also in a small mining town.

I live in a terrace which is as your option 2. The row at right angles to ours is like your option 1. I suspect that when they were built there wasn't the expectation of privacy or the garden being an outside leisure space that we have today.

We had an outside toilet in our outside yard actually thinking about it but there was an upstairs bathroom too. I don’t know if it was put in after the house was built though.

Our house was first owned by my great great grandparents and passed down to my dm when she got married. It needed extensive work before they could move in including the indoor bathroom. It still had the coal furnace in for a few years after and I remember coal deliveries. I promise I'm not that old

How weird, not sure what is more annoying, that or our setup which is no alley at all!