Investigating Liverpool’s court housing

PhD student Kerry Massheder outside Liverpool's only remaining court dwellings on Pembroke Place Liverpool was once dominated by court housing, but with only one example remaining in the city a research project is seeking first hand accounts of life in these dense domestic settings. As the population boomed through the industrial revolution, space was at a premium and back-to-back courts spread across the newly formed urban landscape. Poor ventilation and light They consisted of a passageway leading from the main thoroughfare, with two and three storey houses facing each other across this narrow space. Whole families were sometimes squeezed into single rooms, while the passageways provided the only access to ventilation and light. Most were condemned as slums. Clearances that began before the start of the Second World War were completed by the 1960s, and almost all of Liverpool's unique industrial domestic legacy was lost. University of Liverpool PhD student, Kerry Massheder is seeking to collect first hand oral testimony from families who lived in the courts.