Inside Double Row

Double Row is a block of eight back to back tenement houses. The river facing side of the row was sometimes referred to as Water Row.

Numbers seven and eight are five storey. The others are four storey. When they were built there would have been two families on each floor. That meant the five storey houses would each have housed ten families at the front and ten at the back. The complete row would have accommodated 136 families. There are thick stone walls between each house but only floorboards and thin plaster walls inside. There would have been a lot of noise and little privacy. Back to back housing was cheaper to build but they were unhealthy places.

Water Row in 1903

 There used to be a water powered cotton mill in Blantyre, south east of Glasgow. Only one housing block remains and this is maintained as the David Livingstone Birthplace Museum. In addition to the Livingstone memorabilia the museum has a room set out as it would have been when an entire family lived in a single room.

In the early years New Lanark mill workers  would have lived in very similar rooms.

For many years Double Row lay derelict as the Trust under Harry Smith wanted to restore it as multi occupancy tenanted housing. The problem was that nobody would give them the money for the restoration.

External work on Double Row

 Finally, it was decided to sell off seven of the houses as single occupancy dwellings. The problem with the original plan was that with, say, two families in each house car parking would have been a real problem [14 families x 1-2 cars per family = too many cars.

Number Seven is being kept as a museum. It is not clear if it is owned by the New Lanark Trust or some national conservation body. When Double Row was being prepared for sale work was done on the roofs and external stonework. However, nothing as been done to the interior of number seven and it is in a very poor state, as can be seen from the photographs.