I love the terraced house; they have been around since the 16th century and can be found all over the world. To me they are a house we understand and am familiar with. They have an honest means of construction governed by the materials available that has stood the test of time.
Terraced Houses have been associated with everyday people and with their uniform fronts and uniform height they have a degree of stylishness not found in traditional rows. They are also a very cost-effective house that’s easy to maintain.
I grew up in Birmingham, where contrary to popular belief, it was the terrace house that dominated the landscape and not the back-to-back. There were many thousands of back-to-back houses, but they were concentrated into certain areas, whereas the terraced house could be found city wide.
Birmingham, in its infinite wisdom and thirst for government grants demolished thousands of them to boldly build unsocial estates plagued with anti-social behaviour and a maintenance minefield of forever escalating costs.
This is interesting because retrofitted reproduction and genuine historical terraced houses in other parts have become part of a gentrification process in some inner-city areas. Long live the terraced house.
