2-324-049 - www.picturethepast.org.uk/Nottingham City Council Health Dep/Heritage Images

Ruston's Place, Bellar Gate, Caunts Yard, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, 28th May 1919. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the City Council Health and Engineers Departments to record poor housing conditions, prior to their demolition as part of the post World War I housing programmes of the 1920s. The photograph shows back-to-back housing with no internal plumbing, no through ventilation, open drains in the communal yard with a water tap at the end of the drain. The people living there would have shared toilet closets and a wash house at the end of the yard. The women here are probably 'rag picking' to supplement their income, by sorting through old clothes, repairing and salvaging some, removing buttons and lace, before selling the remainder for rags.