Off the High Street

One of the first things I noticed about some of the shops in my local high street was how far back they extended. They don't have a wide frontages but some go back 2 to 3 hundred feet or more. There are historic reasons for this.

The high street dates back hundreds of year and by the mid 1600s most of the land was sectioned at right angles to the main road, these parcels of land would extend as far as they could before maybe coming to a local river or other road. A shop would have been on the street with a dwelling behind then a yard, gardens, a pig sty and space for growing veg. 

By the mid 1700s many of these yards had cottages filling in the spare space, mostly onto a narrow path that lead out onto the high street. Some small shops also appeared.

Today some of these yards have been swallowed up by shops extending behind Georgian facades or pub gardens etc. There are still many alleys running off the high street with names after long forgotten tradesmen. This one still has a row of cottages, most divided into flats.