The Birmingham Back to Backs, once known as Court 15, is the last surviving court of houses that once dominated cities in the Midlands. People from around the world came to live and work side-by-side in these houses, which reveal the history of the working classes of the 19th and 20th centuries. Find out what it was like to live here, read about Birmingham’s rich and diverse heritage and discover the ordinary people who brought the Back to Backs to life.
Back-to-backs are houses that were literally built back-to-back, quickly and cheaply, with outer houses facing onto the street and inner houses facing into a shared courtyard.
Court 15 was part of a series of back-to-back houses built in Birmingham in the 1830s. Although the walls between the houses were only one brick thick (which would have made them very noisy places to live in!), the lintels over the doors and the bay windows at the back show that these houses were better built than many others nearby.
By 1896, all the houses fronting onto Hurst Street had become shops, and this remained the case until 2002, when all the properties had been vacated.
Everyone who lived in back-to-back, or ‘court’ housing, shared a brewhouse to do their washing and a small number of outdoor toilets. Overcrowding and poor sanitation was common; this court of 11 houses was once home to as many as 60 people, with only four privies between them!
It was common for families to take in lodgers to help pay the rent, and these lodgers would often share a bedroom with the family's children, separated from them by a makeshift curtain.
– Jean Whitehead, a former Back to Backs resident
Washing was done on one day of the week and bathing wasn’t much more frequent. The houses were condemned as unsanitary places to live in the 1930s, but people still lived here up until the 1960s. By this time, the houses were structurally unsafe as well as unsanitary.
1851
The Levy family were a Jewish family who migrated from London to Birmingham in 1851. By this time, there was a Jewish community of around 700 people in the city, along with a synagogue and a Hebrew school nearby.
Lawrence Levy was a watchmaker and it's likely that he used part of the house as his workshop. The family had moved out of the court and closer to the city's Jewellery Quarter by 1861.
Please note you need to book tickets to Birmingham Back to Backs. You can book for the following day up until 4pm. Every Thursday another week of time slots is added, so you can book up to four weeks in advance.
Discover the history behind the George Saunders’ collection at Birmingham Back to Backs, a story that is inextricably linked with Birmingham’s black history.
Step back in time and experience life in Birmingham’s last surviving court of back-to-back houses, taking you from the 1840s through to the 1970s on an intimate guided tour.
Explore what goes into caring for a particularly unusual collection, which offers a glimpse into the lives of the ordinary people who helped shaped Birmingham.
Learn about people from the past, discover remarkable works of art and brush up on your knowledge of architecture and gardens.
Explore the objects and works of art we care for at the Back to Backs on the National Trust Collections website.
