Who Lived in a House Like This at Christmas? Life Inside Back-to-Back Houses in the past.

In this video, I return to the Birmingham Back to Backs, still the number one Trip Advisor attraction, to explore what Christmas was really like inside Britain’s back-to-back houses during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Using the houses as they are displayed today, including the preserved “time capsule” area, this film looks at everyday Christmas life in working households during the 1840s, 1870s, and 1930s. Rather than focusing on tradition or nostalgia, it examines how Christmas fitted into ordinary routines shaped by work, housing conditions, health, overcrowding, and limited income.

Drawing on contemporary reports, census evidence, and primary accounts, the video explores how people marked Christmas through small changes: food carefully planned, houses cleaned where possible, time briefly slowed, and family life carried on within tight physical and economic limits.

Back-to-back houses were once common in industrial cities across Britain. While examples still exist in places such as Leeds and Bradford, most were demolished during twentieth-century slum clearances. The Birmingham Back to Backs are a rare preserved group that allows visitors to step inside and understand how these homes functioned as lived spaces over time.

This video is part of my ongoing social history work through Through Lucy’s Lens. If you have your own memories of Christmas in back-to-back houses, courts, terraces, or similar homes, you’re very welcome to share them in the comments. Please consider subscribing to join the amazing community of history lovers in the comments and you are also contributing to my aim to bring the voices of the often unheard in history to the forefront. Your support is so appreciated.