Nine families sharing a sink

An indication of the poor housing conditions in parts of Stirling was given at a meeting in the town’s Lesser Albert Hall in April 1929.

The gathering was to mark the first year of Thistle Property Ltd, which was formed under the auspices of the Stirling branch of the National Council for Women.

Its mission was to acquire structurally sound property which did not meet modern-day sanitary requirements and make them habitable at reasonable cost. The scheme supplemented efforts by the town council to improve housing in the area.

Trust honorary secretary Mrs DB Russell gave an insight into the work it was doing.

She described the‘awful conditions’which existed in houses in Stirling’s St John Street and St Mary’s Wynd before the trust began a programme there.

In one case, nine families were sharing a sink next to a front door in full view of the street. There was also 23 families sharing three ‘sanitary arrangements’in a back garden and one washhouse without a roof.

She spoke of a man, his wife and seven children living in a ‘semi-underground house in which one or other of the children was almost always ailing.

Mrs Murray said these details sounded harrowing but in other parts of the town there were worse conditions in housing which did not belong to the trust.