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| Dixon's Rows, image courtesy of Auld Blantyre |
Dixon's Rows
Dixon’s Rows were constructed in 1877 and owned by William
Dixon Ltd., a company that also owned several coal mines in the area. Evidence
presented to a Royal Commission in 1914 described the housing as “the most
miserable type of house, thrown together with bricks in the cheapest fashion,
with floors consisting largely of flags laid on earth.” It was an extensive
housing complex off Stonefield Road. The apartments were one or two rooms and
each room had at least one window. Entire families lived together in a unit and
a typical family of the time often included 6 or more children.
The housing at Dixon’s Rows did not include indoor plumbing.
Families used community washhouses to bathe, which were shared by every 4
two-room units and every 8 one-room unit. And they had to bring their own water
to the washhouse! Water
closets, or toilets, were also shared; there was one toilet for every 3
two-room units, one for every 5 one-room units. Sometimes 18 or more people shared an outhouse!
While the miners were working deep underground, their wives
were working too. There were no sinks in the houses at Dixon’s Rows so the
women had to go to standpipes, which had been installed at long intervals along
the rows. After the cleaning, cooking and washing, was done, the dirty water
had to be taken to an open gutter that ran along the front of each row. Dixon’s Rows included no garden grounds for growing fresh
vegetables or coal cellars in which to store fuel for heating. The miners paid
for trash removal, called scavenging at the time.
How did I do?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWow, I can't imagine living in those conditions yet somehow they managed. You did great job telling the story about the housing at Dixon's Rows. I never heard of Dixon's Rows so I found your post very interesting.
ReplyDeleteFebruary 15, 2014 at 7:26 AM