Virtually all Glasgow tenements were constructed using red or blonde sandstone, which has become distinctive.
What were tenements made out of?
Apartments contained just three rooms; a windowless bedroom, a kitchen and a front room with windows. A contemporary magazine described tenements as, “great prison-like structures of brick, with narrow doors and windows, cramped passages and steep rickety stairs. . . .
How were Glasgow tenements built?
The Early Days. The earliest red, grey and beige stone tenements were built between 1850 and 1900 using locally sourced materials. Usually four stories tall, they were never taller than the width of the street and were built in blocks along streets inner-city areas creating the city’s distinctive ‘grid’ pattern.
What was typical of tenement buildings?
Known as tenements, these narrow, low-rise apartment buildings–many of them concentrated in the city’s Lower East Side neighborhood–were all too often cramped, poorly lit and lacked indoor plumbing and proper ventilation.
What is a tenement built?
A tenement can refer to any multi-occupancy residential rental building. However, the term is associated most often with crowded, run-down buildings with low-quality living conditions.
Why are tenement ceilings so high?
They were built for wealth merchants and other business types who wanted high ceilings because it looked impressive.
Why did tenements have windows inside?
These windows have an appropriate name: tuberculosis windows. They were mandated by a 19th century city law requiring that tenements have cross ventilation to help reduce the spread of diseases like tuberculosis—the deadly “white plague” not uncommon in poor neighborhoods.
What Stone is Glasgow built from?
Traditionally seen as a city built from stone and slate; local quarried blonde sandstone and latterly red sandstone sourced from Dumfriesshire are synonymous with Glasgow and its tenements.
Why are buildings in Glasgow black?
The soot and smoke had a welcome host in the pores of the city’s buildings, most of which were constructed of native Scottish blond or red sandstone. Though beautiful to design with and easily cut, sandstone is subject to staining from both chemical pollution and acid-producing microbes that live within the stone.
Do Glasgow tenements still exist?
The city is known for its tenements, where a common stairwell is informally known as a close. These were the most popular form of housing in 19th- and 20th-century Glasgow and remain the most common form of dwelling in Glasgow today.
What is a tenement flat in Scotland?
Section 26 of the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 defines a tenement as: “Two or more related but separate flats divided from each other horizontally.
What were dumbbell tenements?
Old Law Tenements are commonly called “dumbbell tenements” after the shape of the building footprint: the air shaft gives each tenement the narrow-waisted shape of a dumbbell, wide facing the street and backyard, narrowed in between to create the air corridor.
What are dumbbell tenements?
Definition of dumbbell tenement
: a tenement building formerly common in New York City and having a long narrow plan characterized by two narrow air wells at each side.
Did Glasgow tenements have bathrooms?
But this did not necessarily mean that every tenement house was given its own private bathroom. A shared privy was the reality for Glasgow’s working class, even into the 1970s. Indoor sanitation looked very different for the middle class. The Tenement House boasts its own private flushing toilet, complete with a bath.
What is a tenement wall?
Tenements are characteristically of traditional construction, with stone outer walls and brick inner walls and party walls, typically four storeys high, but this can extend up to eight storeys.
Who built the tenements in Glasgow?
As for ‘bread and butter’ tenements, the classic four storey tenements on Minerva Street in the Finnieston area date back to around 1853, designed by architect Alexander Kirkland.
How thick are tenement walls?
Most internal walls are built of a single skin of brick, 110mm wide, with lime plaster on both sides taking the walls to about 150mm thick. You may find thicker walls at ground level and where there are ducts or chimneys.
Are tenements cold?
Keep the cold out
Tenements are often draughtier than newer homes, which can increase heating costs as well as making your home feel chilly. Although you do want a level of ventilation, sealing draughts around windows, under doors, between floorboards and in unused chimneys can make a big difference.
How high is a Glasgow tenement ceiling?
Edinburgh and Glasgow
Glasgow tenements were generally built no taller than the width of the street on which they were located; therefore, most are about 3–5 storeys high.
Why are windows bricked up Scotland?
The window tax, which came into effect in 1696, meant that a house had to have at least seven windows or a rent of at least £5 to be taxed. To avoid the costs, some houses from the period can be seen to have bricked-up window-spaces.
Was there electricity in tenements?
There was no electricity until after 1918. Since the apartments had no ventilation, sickness spread quickly. In the tenements, it was dangerously hot inside. The only window was for fire escapes.