Colony houses
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The colony houses of Edinburgh were built between 1863 and 1910 by the Edinburgh Cooperative Building Company Limited. The founders of this company were influenced by the Reverend Dr. James Begg and the Reverend Dr. Thomas Chalmers, ministers of the Free Church of Scotland, who campaigned to improve the housing conditions of the poor.[1]
A newspaper from 1870 reports: The entire capital (of the Company) is subscribed by 836 members, 400 houses supplying healthful accommodation for at least 2,000 individuals, have been built and sold for £70,000; and an average profit of over 15 per cent has been paid every year.[2]
The most well-known group of colony houses in Edinburgh are the eleven streets making up the Stockbridge Colonies, but streets of colony houses are found in many parts of Edinburgh, including Abbeyhill. Characteristically, each flat originally had four rooms, a separate external toilet and a garden. Colony houses were built as double flats, upper and lower, with the upper flat's front door on the opposite side to the lower flat's front door, allowing each flat to have a front garden.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
Richard Rodger, Housing the people: the colonies of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1999)
