Surrounding Battery, the Quay and Coinagehall Street were a number of little courts with tiny tenements filled with hard working people; one such court was Cornish's Court, off Green Street; It, with Pascoe's Court, was built long before 1840. For the moment, ignore the coloured markings on the plan, this was done by Frederick Drewitt, in preparation for Penzance Borough in their early plans for the road to the Quay and for the re-development of Battery area. At the end of what was Cornish's and Pascoe's Court is built the Yacht Inn - that masterpiece by Colin Drewitt. At the top of Green Street now stands The Bethel by Oliver Caldwell. The Coach yard and stables of course were demolished. Somewhere in Picture Penzance is a picture of the entrance arch; atop the roof was a lookout lantern window.
From the 1878 OS Map - 1:500 scale.
Tenements
In this day of Building Regulations and associated sanitary controls, with maintained sewers, and defined minimum standards;
with expectations of living conditions and of number of rooms and their sizes;
expected finishes on walls and floors, heights and required size of windows,
it is worth reminding ourselves of the conditions that were then not simply thrust upon people,
it was the accepted and gratefully received. 'We have a roof over our head'.
A change was imminent across Cornwall and the rest of Britain by the passing of the Public Health Act in 1848.
20th February 1849, Board of Health Inspector wrote in his report concerning
this area of The Battery and of the town in general of these small courts.
They were small, close, unpaved. holes without drains, gutters were set a yard from the back of the houses running past each house,
this drain took the outfall from cesspool and privies, and stagnated in front of front doors and windows.
The privies were in the courtyard, along with the open cesspool, into which the occupants also placed their waste materials;
lanes were only too often used as 'public toilets'. It was down to nature and rain to clean this down.
Battery and the Quay was the worst of the worst; privies were inside each tenement
(we are not talking about a nice piece of twyfords with a twin flush and extract fans, with connection to the sewer)
an open trench took the waste from the wooden box to the open cesspit,
in some cases that cesspit was under the roof cover of the tenements.
Upper storey waste was discharged in an open shoot.
Those tenements against the quays of Battery had no privies or cesspits.
The house waste was emptied occasionally straight into the street or over the sea wall dirctly into the sea.
The stench that resulted when the tide had gone out was beyond bearing.
The courts gained very little air or ventilation, because of the arrangements of walls and the narrow passages.
The health of all occupants of these tenements was dire.
No house drainage, no sewers, when it rained lanes were impassable, as they were swamped, muddy and full of the town filth.
Raymond Forward
