Description: Showing former framework knitters houses, with their distinctive large windows on the upper storeys where the whole family would work, manufacturing textiles as out-workers. The area is today bounded by Manvers Street, Pennyfoot Street, Lower Parliament Street, and Southwell Road. There are no longer any dwellings, its dominant feature being the Nottingham City Transport bus depot. A century ago, however, this irregular triangle, seven acres in area, was home to nearly 2,000 people, and the cause of serious concern for the Nottingham City authorities. Like the majority of Nottingham's most notorious slum districts, it rapidly expanded during the hundred years after 1745, during which the town's population increased sixfold, with barely any corresponding increase in acreage. Along the western edge of this small triangle ran Carter Gate, off which ran Water Street and Victoria Place, and Back Lane formed the western side. By the close of the eighteenth century, when William Stretton drew his detailed plan of the town, there had been some minor developments on the site. Back Lane had been renamed Water Lane, and off it on the east side, ran four short streets. A map of the city centre in 1844, and a later map of 1861 shows that the area was now totally developed. By 1861, Water Lane had become Water Street, and the thirty-seven streets, yards and courts within the area had assumed the pattern, which would exist until all was wiped out more than half a century later. In 1909, the Town Planning Act made it illegal for back-to-back houses to be built anywhere in the country. With the weight of the new law behind him, Philip Boobbyer, the Nottingham Medical Officer of Health, prepared a report early in 1912 for the consideration of the Housing Committee. This photograph was taken by the Nottingham City Council Health Department, and was probably included in his report. In his report he asserted that the district between Carter Gate and Manvers Street was an unhealthy area under the terms of the new Act. He came to the conclusion that in this Carter Gate-Manvers Street area in 1912 there lived some 1,989 people, an average of 277 to the acre.