Pre-regulation terraced houses in the United Kingdom

It is a type of British terraced house at the opposite end of the social scale from the aristocratic townhouse, built as cheap accommodation for the urban poor of the Industrial Revolution.

Subsequently, all byelaw terraced housing was required to meet minimum standards of build quality, ventilation, sanitation and population density.

Between 1801 and 1901 the population increased fourfold, and during this period there was a migration from the land into towns (urbanisation), as the nature of work changed with the Industrial Revolution.

In older towns they were constrained by the mediaeval street patterns and the need to fit as many houses as possible on the traditional long plots.

[3] The poorest lived in single-roomed houses facing onto a communal courtyard with a shared outhouse (privy), a cesspit, a standpipe, and consequently high rates of infant mortality, typhus and cholera.

More workers were attracted in from the countryside to tend the machines and a large number of dwellings were required in short order.

The particles from smoke from the steam engines' boilers descended and wrapped the adjacent housing in a layer of grime.

The medieval system of many rural copyholders holding small properties and enjoying rights of common was being replaced by Enclosure, leading to larger farms with tied cottages for fewer employed labourers.

[4] Edwin Chadwick's report on The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population (1842),[5] researched and published at his own expense, highlighted the problems.

It provided accommodation for the very poorest workers; because these houses tended to be closer to the sources of employment, it eliminated the cost of transport.

[7] In general, these houses were unhealthy, shoddy, jerry-built and the rental income achieved was far too low to enable even maintenance never mind improvement.