TWO-SHILLING FLATS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 77, 9 July 1910, Page 9

TWO-SHILLING FLATS

No better-appointed or more moderately rented homes for the poor have ever been built than those opened in Liverpool road, Islington, by the Mayor (says' a Home paper). These homes, comprised in six blocks, have been built with part of the halfmillion left by Mr. Samuel Lewis for housing the poor, and there are 322 tenements. They will only be let to people whose income does not exceed 25s per week. There are three classes, comprising three rooms, two rooms, and one room respectively, with a scullery to eacn scp- 4 orate tenement. The scullery is fitted with a reversible range, which admits of the lire-grate and its contents being transferred into the sitting-room or liv-ing-room as soon as it has served its purpose in the scullery. In the latter are also a gas-stove, a full-sized bath, the top of which can be used as a table, well-ventilated cupboards, enamelled sink, and many other conveniences mostly absent from the working-man's residence, lias is supplied on the penny-in-the .slot system. The rents vary according to size and the height of the buildings. The threeroomed ones range from Gs 6d to Bs, the two-roomed ones from 4s Od to 6s, while the third-class will be let at 2s and 2s Cd per week. 'But the latter are quite a novelty, and are situated in a separate block. They are for widows only, and will receive nobody else. These rents are inclusive, unless one excepts a row of eighty-one lfc>ck-<u|p sheds -gfhich have been erected for the storage of bicycles and prams. An extra penny per week will secure one of these. Besides these there are many things in common. Clothes-lines are "barred," because although the washing will be done in the scullery, it will be dried in the "dryingroom." The process adopted in this* wMI ensure perfect drying in a maximum period of one hour and a-half—an inestimable boon to the working-man's wife when there are young children and washing about on a wet day. The yards are paved and planted with I shrubs, and there are three shelters in which to enjoy a smoke or friendly chat. On alternate landings the gas will be kept burning until eleven and all night respectively.