Palmerston Buildings, City Garden-Row, City-Road. Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 18 August 1866.

PALMERSTON DWELLINGS, CITY-ROAD.,THE Improved Industrial Dwellings Comp&ny (Limited) has recently completed the new buildings shown in our Illustration, which are named after the late Prime Minister, and situated in City Garden row, close to the City-road Bridge. There are three blocks of buildings, side by side, and each is six stories in height from the basement. The block, having a frontage of 56 ft. by a depth of 44 ft., is divided into four sections by a party-wall in the centre and a passage in the middle of each wing. The two centre sections are set back about 3 ft. from the front line, for the purpose of giving space for a balcony of that width on each of the upper floors. The balconies are reached by a fireproof staircase, which extends from the basement to the roof. The larger lettings, consisting of three rooms and a washhouse, occupy the end sections of the building. The living-room in each tenement is provided with proper cupboards and with a range having an oven and a boiler. Leading out of the living-room is the washhouse or scullery, which contains in every case what may be called the accessories of the dwelling-water-cistern, sink, small fireplace, which is used for cooking, washing-copper, dust-shoot, and the closet. The front room of the three-roomed tenement is a spacious, handsome parlour, having two windows, one of which looks out on the balcony; the fireplace being placed a little on one side of the centre of the room, leaves a convenient space for an additional bed whenever the room is required to be used as a bed-room. On the other side of the fireplace is a side-board and cupboard. The centre sections comprise the smaller lettings, and consist of only two rooms and a washhouse, but are supplied with exactly the same conveniences as the largerlettings. The plan is the same on each side of the centre partywalls, and each floor or flat is a repetition of the other. Close to the ceiling of each room is a ventilator, which communicates with airshafts running through the centres of the chimney-stacks. The air in these shafts is constantly rarefied by the warmth of the flues, and a system of natural ventilation is produced ; while by setting open the windows a current of external air can be at once passed through every room. The windows are made to open outwards like French casements; but the two lower panes are fixed. All the rooms are 8 ft. 3in. in height. The walls of the rooms are plastered and papered internally, and will always be dry, as they are not the external walls of the building. The drainage is effected by stoneware pipes, which pass down the corners of the washhouses; and a dust-shaft carries off the dust to a - covered recentacle at the,uaste r oo f uu LU. m acn tenanmt nas s ils artmen quite to mmseln, but the roof may be used in common for a drying-ground.

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Keywords: poverty, dwellings for the poor.